Stacked Deck
by TStabler
Summary: When someone makes Elliot Stabler an offer he's been eagerly anticipating, he accepts without question. His trigger-finger irrevocably changes lives of everyone around him, jeopardizing his family, his career, & the love of his life. To regain control, he has to accept the hand fate has dealt. With his partner by his side, though, he knows he's playing with a stacked deck. EO M
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This idea popped into my head, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, until I wrote it out. Similar to a few of my older fics, but still, I feel, unique in idea and execution. Forgive me?**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything except the written words. Dick Wolf, don't sue me, pal. This is a labor of love!**

He apologizes, for what seems like the fifth time, and she simply smiles at him. He smiles back, his suit jacket unbuttoned as he leans back in his cushioned chair. "I'm sorry," he says again.

"I'm not mad at you. We both made the choice, okay?" She moves her computer's mouse around a bit, waking up her machine. "We have a lot of paperwork to do, anyway, so getting docked is a blessing in disguise." She smiles at him again, her brown eyes sparkling. She runs a hand through her wavy hair and winks, and then turns her gaze to her monitor, starting up the database program and opening a blank file.

He shakes his head, still smiling, and boots up his own system. He reaches for one of the files stacked up in the middle of their metal desks and flips it open, and then rests his hand over his mouse. He moves the cursor, but before he can open the program, an Interdepartmental Message alert pops up, an unfamiliar handle and icon at the top. Curious, he opens it, and he tries to place the name.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Top o' the mornin,' Detective.

It doesn't ring any bells, so he decides he needs to ask.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Who is this?

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Wow, rude much?

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Morning. Now, who is this?

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** No time for introductions. I have a few questions, I need answers. I'm on a tight schedule here.

Elliot, still furrowing his brow and pursing his lips, opens a new window. Quickly, he starts to run a database search. He types in the username, but it deletes itself. He tries again, and again it disappears. He opens another IM window, to Olivia, and he asks her to try to trace the handle, but her computer never pings and the window closes by itself. He tries again, this time shooting an IM to Morales upstairs in the technical response unit. He curses as that window is closed, too, and the message deleted before its delivered.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Don't even try it, Detective. Clearly, I've hacked into the server. Right now, I'm piggybacking off of a secure network ID, so all TARU would find is that some poor asshole in Traffic Crimes has too much time on his hands.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Who are you and what the hell do you want? I'm working here.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** I told you, introductions have to wait. As for what I want? I want to play a game. 20 questions. I'll start.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** I don't play games.

He moves the mouse, dragging the cursor across the screen, and he clicks the red X in the window, closing the IM, shaking his head. "Stupid kids," he spits, assuming it's one of the interns in Computer Crimes playing a prank. He flattens a palm over his green tie, smoothing it down as he relaxes. But he gasps, though, when a new browser window pops open, on its own, and an e-mail begins to write itself. The recipient? Captain Donald Cragen. The subject line? Formal Transfer Request. The sender? Elliot Stabler.

His eyes widen as he watches the ghostwriter type in the body of the e-mail, a detailed account of what some would consider a romantic, passionate affair, others would consider soft-core porn, filling in the gaps with emotional pleas for his mental health, a claim that he would go crazy if he had to give her up and rather than lose her, he'd lose her job. The attached photo proves that some of what is typed is true, but no one in the unit needs to see it. Especially not Cragen.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** All right! Motherfucker, fine! Just...delete that! I'll answer your questions.

Elliot heaves a relieved sigh as he watches the e-mail disappear, letter by letter, and the window closes.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Smart man.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Ask me, asshole. Just...leave Olivia out of this.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** No can do, pal. After all, she's why I'm here. And don't try to tell her what's going on here, or you'll be sorry. So will she.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Excuse me?

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** First question. Does your wife know you've been fucking your partner? For three fucking years?

Elliot stills, his heart pounds against his chest, and he bites his lip so hard it bleeds. He looks across at her, her bangs falling into her eyes, her lip poking out of her mouth as she concentrates, and he begs her to look up at him, so he can silently tell her what's going on, but his computer pings, getting his attention.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Tick, tock, Detective! Answer the question!

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** She suspects.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Atta boy. See? This isn't hard. Are you just fucking her, or do you actually feel some kind of shit for her?

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** I think you already know.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Aw, Detective, you were doing so well! That wasn't an answer, and now you have to pay.

As Elliot watches, his cursor moves by itself, clicking an important file folder and dragging it toward the Recycle Bin.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** I'M IN LOVE WITH HER, OKAY? HAPPY?

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Just don't delete that! Please!

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Ah, you're learning. You answered just in time.

Elliot relaxes his shoulders, trying to breathe, watching the folder snap back into its place on his desktop.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** So your precious Liv, she's just playing second fiddle to your wife? And you think that's okay?

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Never. Divorce. Ever hear of it?

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** It's been three years, Detective. She fucks you, because you give it to her the way she wants it, the way she needs it, but she doesn't think you have a real future. She did once, but not anymore. She knows you're staying with your trophy wife, and eventually she'll move on. I'm right, no?

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Couldn't be more wrong. We talk. She knows everything, and she knows I don't put her second to anyone, or anything. Ever. And I signed papers, just waiting on Kathy.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Atta boy! You passed the test! You know, you two really are fucking hot. I've seen you in action. I got videos, you know. I could sell them, make a fortune. You are packing some pretty impressive heat and that partner of yours…I could do some damage to her, and I would love every minute of it. That body, the way she moves. I can see why you caved, why you fucked her the first time, why you fuck her every chance you get.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** DO NOT TALK ABOUT HER LIKE THAT!

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Maybe your wife would like to see one of our movies? It would convince her to sign the papers, huh? OR Maybe it'll get her as hot as it gets me. We both know it'll be the first time she's seen your lethal weapon in, what, the past three years?

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** We'd know if we were being filmed. You're bluffing.

He gasps and coughs as a window pops open on his computer screen. Sure, it's a grainy video clip, but obviously it is him, and Olivia, and he thanks God that the psycho he's dealing with didn't blast the volume. He tries to frantically click the X but the video plays on, it won't close. He can't help it, he watches, and his pants tighten as he realizes they really are fucking hot. He snaps out of it, though, and slams a fist down on the keyboard.

"You okay?" Olivia asks softly, looking up at him.

"Fucking computer," he spits, trying to laugh, "I thought we put in a request for new ones." He clears his throat and he exhales slowly when the video stops playing and the window fades into nothingness.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** OKAY! CHRIST! You have video! But how the fucking fuck?

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** I don't bluff, Detective. Know that. Your dirty little secret's safe, as long as you play the game. Now, next question. Are you absolutely sure you know everything about your precious partner? I mean...EVERYTHING?

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Damn right, I do.

He smirks. This is the one thing he's absolutely sure of, he can't be painted into a corner with this.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** You sure? Have you been infallibly honest with her? Are you sure she's never lied to you?

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Fuck yes. We know everything about each other, I have never lied to her, and she's never lied to me, and that was fucking more than one fucking question.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Potty mouth, Detective! I've already warned you about your manners. That's going to cost you.

Elliot hears Olivia's computer ping, and his head pops up, his eyes wide, beads of sweat beginning to form on his brow as he wonders what the hell the lunatic said or did or sent her. He watches, helpless, as she gives him a smoky look, lowers her voice, and says, "Not at work, you want to get us both fired?" But then she smirks. "Besides, you'll find out, tonight." She laughs and shakes her head, and then goes back to her paperwork.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** Knock it the hell off!

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** LOL DETECTIVE. You don't get to tell me what to do. Unless you start playing by my rules, I will destroy your career, your relationship, and your family. Bit by glorious bit.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Relax, Detective. Wipe your forehead, breathe, this will all be over soon.

Elliot runs a hand down his face as he breathes, hard, and wipes his forehead with his sleeve, as he was instructed.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Atta boy! Just relax and look at your partner. I know she calms you down. By the way, I love that color on her. The red brings out her eyes, doesn't it?

He realizes now that the son of a bitch can see them, hear them, could even be in the room with them. He swallows hard and says the one thing he knows the bastard wants.

 **ESTabler_SVU_6313:** She always looks beautiful.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Aw, how sweet. We're running out of time, here, Detective. I have to make this fast, so I'll cut to the chase. Now, you know what I'm capable of, what I could do to you, to her, to Kathy and the kids, so react very subtly, and think very carefully.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** Open your front desk drawer, take out the folded note I've left for you, read it to yourself, and nod once if that's something you knew, lick your lips if it's coming as a bit of a shock.

Taking a slow breath, he pulls open the drawer and his fingers curl around the edges of a folded piece of yellow paper. He lifts it, unfolds it, reads it, and now he knows what's happening. She'd warned him this would happen if anyone found out about them, and deep down, he'd wanted it to happen. He lets himself smile slightly as he nods once, and crumples the note into a little ball. He shoots it like a basketball into the trash can, declaring victory. The bastard tried to break him and failed.

 **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7:** If that's true, then you'll have no problem accepting the offer I am about to make.

A window pops up, and outwardly, it looks like a TOS agreement, something no one reads but just agrees to after they've installed a program or downloaded a game. It isn't anything like that, though. He knows he has to read every single word, and so he does. He takes in the legal jargon, he reads the five bullet points and three subsections, he reads the rules and when he gets to the bottom, he finds two button icons. They both say "Accept."

With a shaking hand, he moves the mouse, he aims the arrow over the first button, and he closes his eyes, knowing what it means, knowing what it will cost, but knowing the rewards are greater than the losses. He clicks the left mouse button and changes his life, Olivia's life, and he swears the universe shifted. He felt it.

He hears Olivia's cell phone ring, and his eyes pop open. He watches her answer it with a swift, "Benson." His eyes stay focused on her as her head turns, her eyes meet his as they widen.

Into her phone, she says, "Say what, now?" she asks, her voice cold. "How did that...no, I didn't give anyone access to…" She rolls her eyes. "I didn't authorize anything. Yes. I'm not sure, either. No, I'll find out." Her eyes close and she swallows. "I know that. So does he, if he…" and her voice stops, she looks into his eyes, and she smiles. "Yeah." She hangs up, licks her lips, and moves to the lockers beside her desk. She opens hers and pulls out a small, black notebook computer, flips it open, and starts frantically typing and pointing and clicking, and that's when it occurs to him to ask a question.

Though, now, he really hates questions.

"What're you doing?" he asks, rising and moving over to her.

"I know what just happened," she whispers to him.

He stands behind her as she opens a program file, and as though it is a video stuck on fast-forward, the entire exchange between him and **Cryp71c0mn15c13n7** replays for them. "He told me not to tell you that…"

"I know," she says, and as the screen-mirrored video continues, she is typing like the wind into the text boxes of another program. "The contract was legit, you know that, don't you?"

He bites his lip and nods. "I know that, I told you...when you told me, I told you that…"

"But," she interrupts him, "No one authorized the offer. This didn't come from…"

"Hold on," he says, cutting her off as one window plays a much smaller, faster version of the most intense twenty minutes of his life and she works her own computer hacking magic in another. "All of that, that wasn't just some sort of initiation into…"

"It was a trap," she says, again stepping on his words. She looks over her shoulder at him. "You fell right into it." She gulps and presses her lips together, and she shakes her head. "And I can't get you out of it."

"I knew...I mean, I read the...I accepted this, I told you if I was ever asked to, I would," he stammers. "What are you saying? That this wasn't sanctioned? Who the hell was I talking to?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know," she says, typing faster, hitting the keys harder, new windows opening, new programs running. "I'm trying to find out."

"He said TARU wouldn't be able to trace him," Elliot whispers, bending closer to her, his heart racing again.

She smirks, almost evilly, as she turns to look at him again. "I'm not TARU. He doesn't know who he just fucked with, and he's not the only one who can play games." She swipes her finger over the touchpad, clicks, drags, and clicks some more, and her smile fades. "But he roped you into shit you're not ready for, that's why I never…"

"My offer was supposed to come directly from you?" he asks, slicing into her reasoning.

She nods once. "I had the whole bit from The Godfather ready to go, only I was planning on being naked in a bathtub when I gave you an offer you couldn't refuse." She worked harder, faster, following the breadcrumbs the hacker had left in the server and the ComStat files, and she found just a small piece of its origin lurking in the basfiles of a back-office data server in Traffic Crimes. "Soften the blow, ya know?"

He watched her work, amazed, and he said, "Well, I felt ready, I clicked the thing, so what happens now?"

"Wait," she hissed, and almost as soon as she spoke the word, three men in black suits walked into the squadroom, strode up to their desks, and stopped, staring at them. One of the men tilted his head and asked, "Find it?"

"Almost," she said, "But, uh, stabler knows that how it happened doesn't change the fact that it happened. He's in, all the way." She sighed again, left her computer to run its programs, and then pointed to the printer. "You wanna get those?" she asked, looking up at Elliot.

"What?" he questioned, moving. He grabbed the stack of paper, flipping through it, and he looked at her. "How the hell did you…"

"Later," she snapped, "I'll explain later. Just help me, here. We gotta go."

Elliot followed her lead, making sure each printed report was stapled into the right folder, and then she moved fast, heading for Cragen's office with a finished stack of files that neither her nor her partner actually had a hand in completing.

When she came back, she grabbed her black jacket nand her keys, and looked at Elliot. "Come on," she said, waiting.

He pulled his own long, tan coat off of his chair, and as he shoved his arm into one of the sleeves, he asked, "Where are we going?"

"You wanted an initiation," she said, giving a sly, sideways look toward the men in suits next to her, and then she smirked at Elliot. "You're about to get one."

 **A/N: Hmmmmmmmm?**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This will have elements of sci-fi, romance, angst, and some mature content, but I could only label it in 2 categories. Shrug. Also, expect looong chapters. I'm enjoying this one.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything except the written words. Dick Wolf, don't sue me, pal. This is a labor of love!**

The ride was short, or at least, that's what it felt like to Elliot, because the entire time, Olivia was straddled over his lap, her nails digging at his scalp as she kissed him hungrily. His hands were up under her shirt, palm to skin, running up and down her smooth back. Soft moans, spat curses, prayers to God and Jesus, and one utterance in Latin filled the air in the backseat. They were thankful that the tinted divider was up, but honestly, they wouldn't have cared if it wasn't.

She growled as she nipped his lips, her hands shoving their way into the waistband of his pants, and just as she was about to wrap her skilled hand around his hard, throbbing length, the car came to an ill-timed stop. The driver knocked on the divider.

"Fuck," she huffed, dropping her forehead to his. "To be continued," she panted, climbing off of him. She smoothed out her clothes, combed her hands through her hair with her fingers, and cleared her throat in a vain attempt to calm down.

He smirked at her, shaking his head. "At least you look presentable," he said, pulling on his pants as he shifted in his seat. "I can't exactly hide this," he gestured nonchalantly at the rather impressive bulge in his rezipped pants.

"Why the hell would you want to hide it?" she asked, brow furrowed, smile wicked. "You already intimidate half the people in there, now they'll know how inadequate they really are." She winked, kissed him again, and got out of the vehicle, slamming the door behind her. She tugged on her jacket sleeves, rolled her head from side to side to ease some residual tension, and walked at a clip toward the security doors.

Elliot had to run to catch up to her, but stepped up to her side just in time to see her press her thumb on a small metal panel, where the door's handle should have been.

She grinned, seeing the intrigued expression on his face from the corner of her eye, and she led him into the building.

The lobby of this place was bustling, busier than the precinct had ever been, filled with men and women in suits, a few in tactical defense gear, black and grey uniforms, and some in black lab coats, milling about and conversing in a way that made the entire room hum. He tilted his head as he followed Olivia, observing the new world around him, wondering why it felt so vastly different, but somehow very familiar.

"Watch your step," she said, not looking at him but yanking him closer to her by his arm.

Both eyebrows shot up high as he watched a small robot zoom by him, and had she not pulled him back, he would have tripped over it. He chuckled in amazement as the bot's head flipped open like a hinged box, and one of its arms reached inside, pulled out a can of Diet Coke, and extended it out to a woman in a black suit. He laughed even harder when he watched the woman pat the bot on the head, and it did a little dance, rolled around in a circle, and then rolled away fast.

"Cute little buggers, aren't they?" she asked, having seen his reaction. "They're IANs."

"Ians?" he questioned, his head still craned over his shoulder, watching the robot continue to dole out soda pops and protein bars.

"Intelligent Anthropomorphic Nano-subordinates," she rattled off, trying not to laugh at the befuddled expression on his face, as if she'd just been speaking a foreign language. In a way, she had.

He snorted, turning his head to face forward as a set of glass doors slid open for them. "So, Ians, then. Yeah, cute."

"Relax," she whispered, resting a hand on his back. "You know what you signed up for, you heard the stories, now you get to live the fantasy."

"I do, huh? So when do you change into the red lace and…" he saw the mildly annoyed yet seductive glare he was getting, licked his lips, and shrugged. "You said fantasy, and I'm sorry, but you...you're involved in every one of my fantasies."

"Oh, I'll be involved," she chuckled. "Just fully clothed." Another set of clouded-glass doors slid open, and Elliot's gasp was more of an audible choke than he'd intended. "Holy…" he swallowed the next word, looking around at the hundreds of monitors lining the walls, the large one front and center, and the keyboards and control panels jutting out from beneath every tenth one or so. He was standing in the middle of a gamer's wet dream. He was stunned, his head turning in all directions, imagining the epic games of _SoldierX_ and _Lethal Force_ he could play in this room. "What is this place?" he asked, his eyes like tea-saucers, the smile on his face so purley innocent.

Her heart warmed at the sight, and she reached out to tug on his tie, getting his attention. When he looked at her, and the ecstatic expression didn't fade at all, she knew she had the same effect on him as the computers. "Control Hub," she said. She pointed to one of the screens on the far right. "That's the Sixteenth, lobby," she said, and her finger moved two monitors over, "Cragen's office," and she moved it again, down two screens. "That's our bullpen, the two interrogation rooms, and the ones around it are all Homicide, Vice, Major Case, and…"

"Hold up," he said, knitting his brows and pressing his lips together, as his weight shifted to his left foot. "All of these are...what, some kind of hidden cameras?" His eyes widened."Cragen's office? What the fuck...if anyone was in this room when…"

"I turned it off," she interrupted, an amused chuckle falling out, "I'm not an idiot." She took his hand and sat him down on the edge of a long, shiny, silver table. She held out her hand and a man in a black and grey uniform, resembling nurses' scrubs, slapped a large remote control into her palm. She hit a few buttons. "Most of these are trained on police stations, government offices, other buildings in the network. Because I am...well...me...there's one in my apartment, and a few in your house, but I never turn them unless I feel it's absolutely necessary, like when you leave the kids with a sitter, or your mother shows up."

"My house? Are you…" his quick anger faded as she raised an eyebrow. "Jesus, yeah, you told me, the, uh...the teddy bears and the picture frames." He scratched his head and pursed his lips. "You, uh, you never turned on the one in the bedroom? Not once?"

She couldn't hide the salacious smile spreading across her face. "Not the live feed," she said, winking at him. "You're getting one hell of a birthday present this year."

"So, you said, your apartment." He took a breath and realized why she'd taken him to this room first. "This is how that asshole got the video of…"

"Yup," she said, not letting him finish the sentence in front of adjuvant personnel. "This is where we monitor our agents. Plant locations, op locations, and homes. Make sure they're _always_ doing their jobs, and if they're not…" she dragged out the word as if singing, and she tapped a few more keys, bringing to the larger screen a live-feed of an older man sleeping on his desk. There was no audio, but the image was clear. She hit a button, and the man's head popped up. He rubbed his eyes and answered the phone on his desk, and Olivia hit another button. The man on the screen jumped high, reactively throwing the receiver across the room, and put a hand over his heart. He looked terrified. Laughing, Olivia looked at Elliot. "Bullhorn," she shrugged. "He needed a wake up call."

Elliot chuckled, but then sobered. "I guess that, uh, that was one of the more innocent consequences." He watched her eyes as they darkened, the light in them fading.

"Depending on the circumstances," she said with a nod, "There are more...severe repercussions." She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. "Royalty before me took a lot of pleasure in it, took things too far, even when it was completely unnecessary. I take no great joy in doing what...well, what has to be done, sometimes."

He reached for her hand, tangled his fingers in between hers, and said, "You and I, baby, neither of us ever feel right about using excessive force. Even when it's the only way...it still sucks."

She squeezed his hand, and then hopped off the table, tossing the remote back to the man who'd given it to her. She didn't loosen her grip on his hand as she pulled him through a set of sliding metal doors that reminded him of something he'd seen on TV once, in a show about aliens and spaceships.

"We going to your office?" he asked, trying to look through the expansive windows and glass doors leading into the various rooms they were passing. He took a jerking step as he craned his neck behind him. "Hey, were those monkeys?"

"What?" she asked, turning her head and stopping, confused. "Monkeys?" She marched back a few feet, stared into the viewing window with a pissed off scowl, and knocked on the glass.

A woman in a black lab coat turned her head and her eyes bulged behind her thick safety glasses. She pointed at the monkey and shrugged innocently, shaking her head vigorously.

"That's not fucking in the budget," Olivia gritted out through a clenched jaw. She slapped a hand against the wall, hard. "Remind me to call Decker in for a little chat, would you?"

"Uh,sure," Elliot said, raising an eyebrow. "Who's Decker?"

"Oh, honey, she laughed. "I wasn't talking to you." She pointed to the ceiling, watching for his reaction.

A surprisingly human-sounding computerized voice spoke, the sound coming from speakers hidden in the walls. "Meeting tentatively scheduled. Benson's office. Agent Hal Decker. His earliest convenient time is Three-fifteen AM. Set meeting?"

"Three…" Olivia sneered, shaking her head. "Does he even fucking sleep? Uh, no, no. Set meeting for seven o'clock, PM, tomorrow," she said to the Automated Personal Assistant, which seemed to give the entire building consciousness.

Elliot laughed, overpowering the confirmation coming from the speakers, and he said, "What's that, like a really smart version of _Siri_?"

Olivia raised a brow as they stopped in front of another pair of metal doors. She took what looked like a credit card out of her pocket and swiped it through a security panel, and then pressed her thumb on a red-lit button. "Our program makes _Siri_ look like a toy, baby."

The button's light turned green, the doors opened, and Elliot's eyes bugged out, yet again. "Woah," he huffed, looking around the room. It's marble walls were filled with crowded bookshelves. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows covered by deep-red velvet curtains tied back with gold tassels filled the spaces between the bookcases. The glass was so clean and clear it almost seemed as though there weren't any panes at all. Hand-carved wooden chairs were peppered around glass topped tables, which he realized were actually some sort of touch-screen computers. He could see the text, images, and small monitors glowing near the streak-free surfaces.

"Research and Development," she whispered to him, "And I come in here when I'm bored, just to read." She shrugged. "Or, uh, I used to. Haven't really had time to be bored in the last couple of years." She smirked. "Three, to be exact."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I've kept you pretty fucking busy, haven't I?"

"Between work, and you and the kids...no wonder I have a horrible coffee habit," she teased. She guided him up a spiral staircase, and she noticed the awe on his face as his hand smoothed over the wooden banister, the carvings and etchings making his fingers roll and bob as they moved. "Beautiful, huh?"

He looked up, smiled warmly, and said, "Yeah, you are." He winked. "So's this...this place, baby. It's amazing." He followed her down a long, quiet hallway, and when she came to a stop, so did he. He watched her as she moved slightly to the left and a red beam of light hit her face, dragged down the contours of her features, and then turned green and disappeared. He heard a buzz and a soft click, and the door in front of her opened. "What just…"

"Retina scanner," she said, walking through the door and into the room. "Same system they use at the NCIS HQ in Quantico, to access MTAC." She walked around a large cherry-wood desk, plopped into a comfortable looking cushioned chair, and held out a hand as she said, "Have a seat."

"This is one fucking amazing office," he said, sitting in a smaller version of Olivia's chair in front of the desk. "That view is…" he shook his head as he stared out of the picture window behind Olivia, the buildings lit up against the cotton-candy sky, the sunset smiling back at him. "It's incredible."

"Yeah, I wish I used this place more often," she chuckled. She opened a drawer and pulled out a thick file. "You...have been nothing but trouble," she laughed, dropping the folder to her desk. It landed with a loud thud. "I mean, an incredible asset, but trouble."

He gave her a smug grin, smoothed a hand down his tie, and said, "You fucking love trouble." He watched her nod at him, and then said, "How am I trouble, exactly?"

"Wicked temper, arrogant attitude, resistant to authority, selfish streak," she listed, "All things that make Ed Tucker your personal hemorrhoid, and make Cragen want to drink again, but they make you one fucking amazing cop. Those qualities...they make you who you are, and you've given me nothing but trouble...because I think we both know I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you, I wasn't supposed trust you enough to tell you all of the shit you know, so, yeah, you've caused some trouble."

His smirk became a very satisfied smile, and he said, "Well, I didn't exactly plan to fall in love with you, either. I didn't plan to have an affair, get my kids to love you almost as much as I do, get my ass handed to me at work because you're just as reckless as I am…" he cleared his throat. "You caused your share of trouble, Benson." He pointed to the ceiling. "But you get away with it, for reasons."

"Now," she said, flipping open the folder and signing the bottom of the very first page, her signature large and swirling, "So do you." She turned the thick file to face him and offered him the pen. "Sign it," she demanded.

Without any hesitation, he took the pen out of her hand and signed his name, with quick slanted script, and after he firmly dotted the i, he tossed the pen down. "Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked, not even looking up, just knowing what sort of look was on her face.

"You just...I mean, you didn't even…" she cleared her throat. "It took me four months to even consider signing my life away, a lot of thought, and doubt, and you…"

"I'll be with you," he interrupted. "You explained this job, you told me exactly what was waiting for me, how and why I'd be asked to do this, and that I'd be with you. _You_ , do you get that?" He licked his lips. "You took time to think about it because it was some life-altering thing for you, right? You didn't even know I existed when you signed your contract. As for me? Honey, the minute you walked into my life, you _became_ my life, and I am your partner, for better or worse, in every possible way. When you told me about this, there was no question, I don't trust you in anyone else's hands." He leaned closer to her. "You've become my best friend, my family, my lover, my soulmate, and I've already made it clear to anyone who fucking knows us that in any situation, if I have to make a choice, I will always choose you. So this decision? It was easy for me. If you asked me to follow you into Hell, I would."

She sniffled as she looked at him, the truth in his eyes, the honesty lacing every word that had spilled from his lips. She wiped her eyes, not even fully aware she'd been crying, and nodded. She whispered, "Well, good, because you just did." She laughed through her softly falling tears, and she took a deep breath. "You ready?" She kept her eyes on his, using all of her training to discern any doubt in them. She watched him nod firmly, and in his eyes she saw no faltering whatsoever, only certainty, and love. "All right, then. First things first," she opened her top drawer, picked up and held out a small square of black plastic, resembling a thick car alarm remote. She flipped a switch on the side, pushed a button, and the center of the square began to glow, a red light illuminating beneath and through the surface.

"What do you want me to do with that?" he asked, shifting in his seat.

"Put your thumb over the red light, press down, keep it there until it turns green," she instructed. "I'm putting you in the system. It'll scan your fingerprint and load any intel we already have on you into a personnel file, give you a title, and security clearance." The light turned green and she held the device in her hand until it beeped three times. "Welcome to the club, Agent Stabler." She winked at him.

"I'm gonna be honest, I expected more, uh, bells and whistles," he said, seeming disappointed.

She rolled her eyes. "There would have been, if I didn't already involve you. I'm letting a few of the probative things slide." She put both of her hands on his shoulders. "I'm putting you in the field, effective immediately." She squeezed his shoulders and heard him moan, watching his eyes slide closed. "Of course, you have, uh, certain duties to fulfill that no other agent does, though. They're...high priority. Can you handle it?" Her hands moved, ripping down his chest, making him moan louder.

"Fuck, yes," he said, and again he didn't hesitate. His hands flew to her waist, his fingers pulled her shirt out of her pants, and his mouth attached itself to hers. "Cameras," he mumbled against her lips.

"Not in my office," she moaned, leaning backward as he got out of his chair and pressed himself into her. She moaned again, feeling his teeth sink into her neck and his hands pull at her pants. "God, Elliot," she seethed, his teeth biting down harder on her flesh. Her head fell back, her mouth fell open, and she hooked her legs around his waist.

He worked his way out of his own pants and they fell into a crumpled ring around his ankles. He moved fast, not needing any further enticement, still worked up to a rigid tension from their half-tryst in the car. He grunted as he thrust his hips, making her cry out his name and dig her nails into his back. "Oh, fuck, yeah, baby," he panted, beginning to move, powerfully hard.

They didn't get far, not even close to being able to bring each other over the edge, before a low-toned beep sounded, and Olivia groaned. She dropped her head to his chest, feeling him begin to move slower, hearing him sigh and whisper her name. "Benson," she said, accepting the incoming communication. "Go."

The same voice they'd heard in the hallway spoke to them. "Benson, I have intel regarding a security breach that took place at six-forty-five PM, location Sixteenth Precinct of the New York Metropolitan Police Department, Special Victims Unit, sector three, console twenty-seven."

Elliot snorted once, still thrusting into and out of his lover slowly. "That's very specific," he said, and then he lowered his head and kissed her neck again. He heard her moan his name softly and he grinned.

"Report," Olivia said, hoping it didn't sound too painful or too pleasurable, the last thing she needed was the APA system sending a Medic team into her office right now.

"Source code found in sector nine, console seventeen, authorized user Stanley Altimar, Detective Third Grade, Traffic and Transit Division. Unauthorized user Brody Nelson, accessed terminal via malware implant uploaded via ComStat data server, initiated unauthorized communication with Agent Elliot Stabler, commenced vulgar and abusive correspondence, distribution of pornographic personal surveillance footage, threatening dialogue, and unauthorized offer of agency employment. Will be waiting for directive, Benson."

"Thank you," she said, trying to suppress her moans. Elliot had picked up speed again, slamming into her with force, making their skin slap and bones hit together. They heard the beep, telling them communication with the APA had been cut off, and she let out a growl she'd been holding in for far too long. "Elliot, baby," she cried, "Fuck, I'm gonna cum."

"That's the fucking point, baby,' he ground out. He worked harder, faster, and he felt her pulsing around him, tightening, keeping him from moving at full speed. He rolled his eyes when he felt her walls throb, gripping him, and he crashed his mouth into hers, catching her scream as she came. He wasn't far behind, working through her tight clamping to thrust one final time, and then he stilled, allowing himself to curse and moan into her mouth as he shot hotly into her.

Panting hard, they ran their hands over each other's body, kissed softly, calming each other down. When she could breathe, she pulled her head back. She smiled and kissed his wrist as he brushed her damp hair back, and she said, "We have to go." She kissed his chin. "Back to the One-Six, before Cragen thinks we're…"

"Off fucking somewhere,' he finished, smirking. He kissed her again. "What did _Alexa_ say to you?"

She rolled her eyes and whimpered in protest when he pulled himself out of her. "It's not _Alexa_ , please. Like Google could get its hands on _our_ technology," she spat sardonically. "We know who hacked into the system, we know who was talking to you, who forced you into…"

"No one forced me into anything," he said, pressing his lips gently to hers, again. He fixed his pants and tucked in his shirt, watching her do the same with a lustful glare, his dick twitching and coming back to life. "Who was it, and when can I kill him?" he asked, taking a deep breath.

She hopped off her desk, raked her hands through her hair as she walked across the room, and pressed her thumb to the panel on the inside wall near the door. The door opened, and she pulled him over to her by the collar of his shirt. "Patience," she said, pushing him into the hallway. "Turn around and look directly at that little red light. It'll hurt, but you have to keep your eyes open." She stepped aside.

Elliot straightened up, looked forward, focused on the light, and when it ran over his eyes, he didn't even flinch. When it turned green, he heard the door lock. "I have access to your office?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You're special," she said, smiling. She walked with him, in sync, hand in hand, back the way they came. She told him, "You'll have a card-key by tomorrow, and expect an, um, interesting phone call in a few minutes." She guided him back through the expansive library, the long hallway, the control room, and the lobby, and she laughed when he bent down to talk to one of the IANs. "El, you have one of your own, now. Baby, you can play with him later."

He got to his feet. "Get to play with you, later, too, right?"

"We just…" she stopped, knowing all about every aspect his life before her. She knew that, for years, he had to stifle his urges and ignore his sexual appetite, how he had so many kinks and fantasies he had to hold back for so long, more inhibitions that he could stand. Now that he had an outlet for it all, and someone who understood, took it all, and gave it right back, she couldn't deny him. She rolled her eyes and chuckled, giving into him. "Of course you do."

He gave a victorious laugh, and just as they moved through the final set of glass doors and stepped outside, his cell phone rang. He looked at her, her expression seemed to say _I told you so,_ and he answered the call as a man in a black suit opened the back door of the car for him. "Stabler," he said, sliding along the seat. He wrapped an arm around Olivia as his brows knitted. "Yes, I did, but I thought…" he blinked. "Oh, well, um, yes. Thank you. When do I have to...oh, really? Is that legally...oh, well, great then. Thank you." He hung up and he turned his head. "You knew this was going to happen?" He saw the look on her face and his eyes widened, sparkling at her. "You did this, didn't you?"

She nodded, and then turned to look at the window as their driver sped off toward their precinct. "I told you," she said. "You're special."

 **A/N: Raised more questions than answers, but come along for this ride, and all will become clear. What happened? Who called him? And what about those monkeys?**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Maybe a few answers? And a few more cards are dealt.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything except the written words. Dick Wolf, please do not sueth me, I ameth merely a fan with a vivid imagination.**

Elliot tossed his keys down on his desk, then moved fast toward the coffee pot, pouring two cups of the stuff. He sipped one and held out the other to Olivia, who winked at him when she took it. He was about to sit down when he noticed something. "Um..this...this isn't…this isn't mine."

"You two," Cragen yelled from the other side of the room. "Your new computers finally came in, don't know what the fuck took so damn long. They're pretty swanky, huh?" He walked over to their desks and ran a finger along the edge of Elliot's new flat screen monitor. "This had to cost a hell of a lot more than what they budgeted out for us, ya think?"

Elliot saw the way Olivia innocently sipped her coffee, feigning obliviousness. "Yeah, they do look pretty expensive." He smirked, and then looked at Cragen. "We got anything on the table?"

Cragen scratched a patch of thinning hair near the back of his neck. "Yeah, but...the two of you aren't up for it. You're still on ass-duty."

Elliot rolled his eyes. "It's not like I hurt the guy!" he spat. "I just…"

"You threatened him, and you both questioned him without his lawyer present _after_ he invoked," Cragen scolded. "IAB already wants your head on a platter, I can't ignore…" he winced, and then looked away from him. "Oh, come on, with the puppy eyes."

Olivia pressed her lips together, holding in a hard laugh, as she watched Elliot bat his eyes with a pout and turned down chin, and Cragen finding it hard to ignore. She smiled at the realization that Cragen had become Elliot's surrogate father, in a way, giving him things he never got from his real dad.

Cragen squeezed his eyes shut, his mouth contorted in a painful seethe, and he balled his fists together and stomped a foot. "Fine, okay, you win, just stop looking at me like that." He straightened and pointed a finger at Olivia as he glared at her. "Control him, will ya?"

"You think I have that kind of power?" Olivia joked, a half-smirk on her face.

"Ya know," Cragen said, his face growing more serious. "I do, actually." He looked back at Elliot. "DB at Peirson College, student union, causing quite a ruckus. Handle it," he said, and then he turned to Olivia. "And you, handle _him_."

She laughed as Cragen walked away, heading for his office. Her head turned, slowly, and she saw the questioning look Elliot was giving her. "Can I help you?" she said, gulping down the rest of her coffee.

He let out a low, throaty laugh. "What is this?" he asked, tapping the new, black monitor on his desk.

"Your new computer," she said with a one-shoulder shrug. She stood and grabbed her jacket again, and as she pulled it on, she said, "Connected to both networks, NYPD and...ours, and it's got top-tier security. There's only three people alive who could possibly hack into…"

"You one of 'em?" he asked, a lusty haze in his eyes. He sipped the last of his coffee and tossed the cup into the trash can under his desk. He smirked. "Yeah, you are," he gave her a slow nod, licking his lips. Her intelligence turned him on as much as, if not more than, her killer body and beautiful heart. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard, to keep himself from getting too excited by the mere thought of her.

Her answer was a roll of her eyes. "Let's go," she said, shaking her head and laughing softly. She tossed him a set of keys and said, "On the way back we may have a stop to make."

"Hey, Stabler!" Cragen called, stopping Elliot and Olivia just as they stepped over the threshold and into the hallway. He watched as they both turned, in the same direction at the same exact time, and he snorted once, laughing to himself. "I, uh, I just got off the phone with someone from HR. You never gave me new forms, did you? They filed them so they…" he scratched his head again. "I mean, you had to have given them to me, if they…" he cleared his throat. "Anyway, they've been filed. You're all set. I just...I don't remember you telling me about any of this. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Elliot's mouth twisted up to one corner. "Don't be," he shrugged. "I'm not. It's a...it's the best choice anyone could have made, it's better for me, for, uh, for all of us." He nodded at his captain and then nudged Olivia with his elbow, starting her down the hall again. "Already?" he asked, stunned.

"My people work fast," she said with an innocent shrug. "The minute you accepted that offer, things had to change, you knew that."

"And what about her?" he asked, pushing the door to the stairwell open. He held it for her and nodded appreciatively at her ass as it moved in front of him. "I mean, when she woke up today, she was married, and she's going to flip the fuck out if…"

"It's been taken care of," she said, turning sharply and staring at him as he stood two steps higher. "You…" she narrowed her eyes and stepped up to look into his eyes. "You didn't really want this, did you?"

He grabbed her shoulders, fast and hard, and pulled her to him, kissing her roughly. Teeth hit, tongues tangled,one of his hands moved down to palm and squeeze her left breast. He pushed her back as their lips smacked one last time before peeling apart. "You know I fucking did," he hissed. "Just...I thought it was gonna take months, it took, like, twenty minutes! I'm a little stunned, here, because she never even signed the damn…"

"Yes, she did," Olivia grinned, her right eyebrow bouncing. "You've got a copy of the papers in your mailbox, so you'll see for yourself. It's her signature down the loopy K." She rolled her shoulders. "They were signed and documented three months ago, according to the records." She turned again and ran down the stairs. "You trust me, don't you?" she asked, calling back to him.

"With my life," he said firmly. "I just...this happened so fucking fast, I still don't understand how you...how?"

Olivia pushed the metal exit doors hard, leaning against it until Elliot had gone through it. She let it slam shut as she let out a frustrated sounding, heavy breath. It had been a long time since she had to explain things to a new agent. Now, usually it fell onto a peon's to do list, but since this was Elliot, it was her job. She stepped up beside him, dropped both of her hands to his shoulders, looked into his eyes, and held him still as she spoke. "Computers are incredible machines, ya know? And society relies so heavily on them, that we are quick to completely believe something a computer spits out, even if the human beings behind the screens swear it isn't true. Your signed papers were filed and processed, legally, so you are, _legally_ , divorced. The date on the claim?" She gave him a sideways smile. "Well, someone in data-entry must have just typed it in wrong, and the courts will apologize for the delay. See, according to them, you should've been granted marital freedom weeks ago." She dropped her arms and started walking toward the car, shoving her hands in her pockets. "You know the truth, and I know the truth, but anyone else thinks there was some kind of clerical error, nothing fishy about it."

"And then, you had someone in the agency hack into the NYPD personnel records and change all of my information," he deduced as he followed her path, "And that's all legal, too, right? I'm only asking because if you're listed in certain areas, I don't want to have a problem if we ever have to…"

"Legal," she said, holding up a hand, "Incredibly legal." She waited for him to click the car's alarm, and as soon as she heard the honk and the click, she opened her door. "Even if it wasn't, for us it wouldn't matter." She propped one elbow on the open door as she stepped into the car with one foot, and the leaned forward. "You spent most of your career in the NYPD wishing you could somehow be above the law. Well, baby, now you are." She sat, slammed the door, and pulled her seatbelt on, waiting for him.

He ran a hand down his face, processing the events of the last few hours, and he took a shaky breath as he got into the driver's seat. "So who's the guy?" he asked, shoving the key into the ignition and starting the car. "The hacker?"

"One of our plants in Cyber Crimes," she said, shaking her head to get the hair out of her face. "He's been waiting for the kind of offer everyone knew I was planning to make to...someone. He knew it was in the cards, but he didn't know it was going to be you. He started...spying on me, I guess. To see if it was _him_." She coughed. "Started out small, reading my messages and emails at work," she turned to look at him. "He couldn't get into the computer in my office or my laptop, and he couldn't get into my phone."

"They got that...what was it, you said? Top-tier security?" he chuckled as she hummed at him. "Thank God for small favors. I know the kind of pictures you have on your phone, and, uh, some of those texts would have really driven him mad"

She chuckled, but she shook her head. "He escalated, then, accessing cams from the Control Hub when he could, and he downloaded his own dossier from one of the data labs. When he realized there was a reason I would ever give him a higher rank, it pissed him off, so he started rummaging through disciplinary records, termination reports, and the tracking data we keep. He got into the surveillance records, data, and stats on all of our potential recruits, including you. He realized it was you that was getting the job he wanted. And...then he found out why I wasn't making you the offer, yet. He thought...he thought roping you in when neither of us were ready would be…"

"Revenge," Elliot said, nodding. He turned the wheel, heading down a one-way street. "What'd he read in those files?" He asked the question through a clenched jaw, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel. "I was ready. Why weren't you ready?"

She blinked. All of that, everything she'd slammed him with today, and his major damage was caused by the knowledge that she had reservations about bringing him into her crazy little world. "Um, well, I…" she cleared her throat and sat up straighter. "I wasn't sure if…"

"You think I wasn't really leaving Kathy, that it?" he yelled, the conversation he'd had with the hacker replaying in his memory. "You think I was just, what, fucking you and going home to her, without fucking giving a shit?"

Her eyebrows screwed together and her lips curled into a hard frown. "The exact opposite, jackass!" she spat back at him. "I wasn't sure if I could handle ripping you away from your life, okay? I know we talked about it, I know it's what you wanted, and I know what you said to me this morning, but, fuck, I didn't want to hurt you, or make you hate me!"

His shoulders curled as she yelled, and his eyes shut for a moment as he turned into the college's parking lot. He rolled down the window and flashed his badge, nodding at the security guard in the booth, who hit a button to lift the barrier. He rolled into a parking space, turned off the car, and breathed out through his nostrils, turning toward her. "I'm sorry," he whispered. He reached for her hand, flinching when she moved it away from him. He went for it a second time, grabbing it and holding it tightly. "Baby, I...something that son of a bitch said to me this morning, I thought...I thought he said it because he knew…"

"I know what he said to you," she hissed at him. "And I know what you said back to him! You told him you knew there was no way in Hell I would…"

"I do know that," he interrupted, his eyes shut. He let them open and focus on her. "I got a little angry."

"A little?" She eyed him, her rage fading and a playful smile forming where her frown once lived. "You skipped angry, you just went right into Hulk mode." Her thumb dragged over the side of his palm as it cupped her hand, and she dropped her gaze, staring at their entangled fingers, amazed at how hers fit between his so perfectly. "You, um, you don't need to worry about Kathy. You asked before...and I know you'd find out eventually, so...there's a few of our anamnesis specialists paying her a little visit, right now. By the time she gets out of work, she'll think...what everyone else will think." She let her eyes travel up to the question mark on his face, and she snickered a bit. "She will go home, to an apartment, not your house, and she will remember going through a pretty ugly custody battle, that she lost, and she won't be completely fucking freaked out, okay?"

"Anamnesis?" he garbled, not even attempting to speak up, afraid he was pronouncing the word wrong.

She took a breath, and she smoothed her lips together once. "It means...see, we have a group of agents who are highly trained and skilled in the art of...altering memories." She winced, expecting him to blow up again, anticipating another run in with The Hulk. When it didn't come, she opened one eye, waiting.

The smile on his face rivaled the one that had bloomed in the Control Hub. "That," he said with a laugh, "Is so fucking cool!" He shook his head as he chuckled, and then he tilted his head. "You're not letting those anam...memory fuckers...anywhere near my kids."

"No!" she yelled with wide eyes, squeezing his hand. "God, no! No, we tell the kids the truth. Only we leave out the more...Bradburian things." She let go of his hand. "We just tell them Kathy left. They know you were getting divorced, right? And they're young enough, they don't have any concept of how long it would actually take to…" she was stunned into silence and stillness by his lips on hers. It was a soft, gentle kiss. When she felt him pull away, she sighed. "What was that for?"

"I love you," he said, so softly he wasn't sure any sound came from him at all. "We, uh...we should…" he cleared his throat. He got out of the car, and a smug grin crept across his face. He really was getting exactly what he wanted, and it was happening a lot sooner than he'd ever imagined. "One more question," he said, when he knew she was walking by his side. "What's up with the monkeys?"

She laughed. "No fucking idea," she said. "That's what we need to find out in our meeting with Decker, tonight."

Elliot shot her a cocky look. "We? Our?" He felt his ego swell, power surging through him. "Why are the monkeys such a problem?"

Olivia walked with him, her hands in her pockets again. "He asked if we could import them three months ago, and I refused to greenlight it. He asked again, I refused. We don't endanger the welfare of any living...well, I mean, unless it's one of the bastards who deserve it," she shot out a scoff. "I placed several constrictions on his department, one of which was a hold on the account. Any requistions and purchases had to be approved by me. When he requested more funding for his damn monkeys, I told him he needed to submit a proposal, detailing exactly what he needed them for, let me know if they would be harmed in any way. Well, he missed the deadline, no one authorized the budget for his department, and...ya know the saying, ' _not my circus, not my monkeys_?" She watched him stifle laughter, his shoulders shaking, but she was annoyed. "It's my fucking circus, yeah, but I don't want any fucking monkeys."

He held in the guffaw threatening to escape, and he pulled the doors open for her. They stepped into the student union, holding their NYPD badges up to anyone who asked, or looked as though they would. They made their way into the dining hall, and something about it felt familiar. He shook away the feeling and kept walking. "Detective Stabler," he said, striding up to the coroner and another man in a grey uniform and a bright yellow vest that had the words "campus security" patched on the front and back. He eyed them for a moment. "My partner," he gestured to Olivia, "Detective Benson." He pointed a finger at the body, laying in a pool of blood. "What, uh, what d'ya got on her?"

"Cafeteria crew called it in," the security guard said, "Found her like this when they came in to start the lunch rush." He held out an evidence bag, already sealed. "Casey Douglas, freshman, Poli Sci major."

Elliot took the bag, examining the girl's pink lanyard ID holder. "She's just a kid," he said softly. He blinked quickly, shaking his head. "All right, uh, what can you tell us about how she...got here."

The guard jerked his chin toward a man in a chef's coat, talking to another officer, and said, "That's the head cook, says that he came to open up, the door was locked. He punched in his code, twice, but it wouldn't _un_ lock. He tried a couple more times, intentionally hitting the wrong buttons, hoping to trigger the alarm, but it didn't go off. Took him twenty minutes of failed attempts, but then the doors finally opened. He walked in, he found the place deserted, lights off, not a thing out of place," he sighed. "Except for _her_." He looked down at the coroner and the body and he lurched forward, throwing a hand over his mouth.

Olivia let out an annoyed breath as she watched the security guard run toward the nearest trash can and practically fall into it as he got sick. She exhaled again and looked down at the medical examiner. "You got a TOD or COD, yet?"

The medical examiner sniffled and held a fist in front of his mouth as he coughed. "She's been here an hour and a half, give or take. She couldn't've been dead more than thirty minutes when Chef Boyardee over there found her." He knelt down, coughed again, and pulled at the girl's shirt as he turned up his eyes toward the detectives. "Bite marks," he said, "They're not just on her chest. I can run them against dental records, see if anything hits, but you'd need to give me a suspect first." He turned the girl's head, lifting her chin back, revealing a long, deep gash. "COD is pretty obvious. Bastard severed every major artery, sliced through the trachea, and removed the hyoid bone completely." He turned his head, stood back up, and looked at Olivia. "Whoever did this has a surgical background, of some kind."

"Thanks," Olivia said with a nod. "Any fluids? Anything we can run without needing someone to compare it to?" she asked, raising a brow.

The man shook his head. "No, uh, I don't think she was raped, Detective. At least, not, um, in the grimly traditional sense."

Elliot folded his arms and his brows twitched. "So why did we get called in if there's no sign of..."

The medical examiner sighed loudly, cutting him off, and looked down at the poor young woman. He sniffled again as he replied, "Like I said, those bite marks? They aren't just on her chest. Your doer? Bit off her nipples, and there's significant tearing...a bit lower." He shot the two detectives an apologetic glance as he discreetly tugged on the young woman's pants, already unzipped and lowered owing to the examiner's earlier examination. "Punctures, cuts, and drag marks are consistent with human teeth."

"Oh, damn," Elliot seethed, turning away and glowering painfully. "Well, thanks, just call us when you get something we can use." He wheeled around to look at Olivia and lowered his voice. "We have to notify the parents. And we'll need to talk to her roommate, friends, find out if she had a boyfriend or girlfriend...and we should head back out to the main security booth, see if there are any tapes or...why are you looking at me like that?"

She laughed with an unfocused gaze and slapped the back of her hand against his chest. "Ah, young Padawan, much to learn you have." She whipped out her phone and without even dialing a number, she held it up to her ear. "Benson, requesting full data file on Casey Douglas, student, Pierson College, age 18."

Elliot's phone buzzed and when he pulled it out of his pocket to check what he assumed was a text message, he choked on a laugh. He had just been sent a very large file, which, he guessed, would answer any questions he had about their victim. "How the hell did you…"

She held up a hand, palm facing him, and spoke another request into her phone. "Benson, requesting current location of Agent Brody Nelson."

Elliot watched her face, the traces of happiness that were usually permanently inked on her skin whenever he was with her were melting into painted lines of fury. He saw her jaw tighten, her eyes darken, and he knew the computer was telling her something that pissed her off, in no uncertain terms. He wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled, spinning her toward him, catching her wildfire filled eyes. "What?" he mouthed to her.

She curled her hand into itself, until she was only holding up one finger, telling him to wait. "Cue up all relevant surveillance of Agent Brody Nelson and…" she paused, trying to think, "Casey Douglas." She waited for the response of acknowledgement, and then hung up the phone. "Son of a fucking bitch," she snarled, scraping a hand over her head and through her hair, her lips tight. She pulled her arm out of Elliot's hold, and snapped, "Get in the fucking car."

Slightly disturbed, he conceded, opening the driver's side door and sliding into his seat. He felt the car shake as Olivia's door boomed shut. "What the hell happened, baby?"

"Nelson," she barked. "The bastard thinks he got away with this, he's fucking bragging about some secret op he was on, and he…" a hand shot to her head, the beginnings of a severe migraine threatening her sanity. "He's at a cafe, six blocks from here," she said, rubbing her temples.

"You think he killed that girl?" Elliot asked, starting the car. "It is a giant fucking leap from hacking my computer to that kind of mutilation!"

She shook her head, licked her lips, and told him, "No, I don't think he did this, but the proximity is a little fucking suspicious, isn't it?" She watched mild realization wash over him and she spoke what they were both now thinking. "You heard the campus security guy, he said the doors were locked, his access code wouldn't unlock it, all the lights were off...fuck, how much you wanna bet the cameras went out at the exact time that girl was attacked?"

"All things that could be controlled with a computer," he said, heading back through the parking lot gate. "Baby?"

She made a noncommittal affirmative sound.

"You wanna grab a cup of coffee?" Looking at her out of the corners of his eyes, he watched her smirk, and then lick her lips. He chuckled and turned the wheel, taking the car in the direction of the cafe, eager to prove to Olivia how very ready he was to be what she needed him to be. His eyes narrowed, and his laugh grew dark, and it occurred to him that he didn't just mean in the agency, he meant in every way possible.

 **A/N: What agency? Does Nelson answer for his actions? And WHAT'S WITH THE MONKEYS?**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Brody. He's a slippery one. But he don't know who he's messin' with, do he. (there will be appearances by three characters from CSI:Cyber, but this is definitely not a crossover, at all.)**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything except the written words. Dick Wolf, please do not sueth me, I ameth merely a fan with a vivid imagination.**

"He's not here," Olivia whispered, looking around the crowded cafe with her lip caught between her teeth. She had her cell phone in her hand, a red dot blinking on the screen. "Son of a bitch," she spat, rolling her eyes. She ran to an empty table in the corner, a laptop and obsolete flip phone spread out amidst empty coffee cups and a plate with half of a cookie on it. She picked up the phone, laughed bitterly as she swiped her tongue across her lips, and nodded. "Of course."

"Fill me in, here," Elliot said, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. He smirked, his fingers brushing against a bit of lacy fabric. His mind momentarily drifted to early that morning, when he'd taken her up against the wall of the precinct before their shift, and he'd ripped her black lace underwear off of her body, with his teeth. He'd shoved them into his pocket and, with the events of the day, he'd forgotten about them, until now. He cleared his throat when he heard her begin explaining.

"He knew," she said, grabbing the laptop. "He fucking knew I would come after him, and of course, he leaves the evidence behind, because he knows…" she chuckled. "He thinks we can't trace it back to him."

"The bastard's good," Elliot reminded her with a half-shrug. "Maybe we can't…"

She turned sharply, raised one eyebrow, and tossed her head to the side, making her hair swirl and move.

He watched as she headed back out through the cafe doors, licking his lips again. "Fucking Hell," he mumbled, tugging on his pants with an uncomfortable grunt. He ran, then, to catch up to her, and asked, "What do we do, now?"

"Well, you were right, before," she began, pushing a button on her key-fob. The trunk of their car opened, and she dropped the laptop and cell phone into a cardboard box. She slammed the trunk and looked at Elliot. "We do need to notify the parents, talk to the boyfriend," she told him as she opened the driver's side door, "And then we go back to base and see what kind of footprints Nelson left, because...remember I told you, there was a reason no one wanted to kick him up?"

Elliot nodded as he got into the passenger seat, buckling up fast.

"He slips up," she informed him, backing out of the parking space. "More often than not. Someone else always has to go in and cover his tracks, or fix his mistakes, or re-do everything completely." She stepped on the gas, weaving in and out of lanes. "I can't count the times I had to work two cases at once, simply because he fucked up the first time." She grinned over the console at Elliot. "Bet you anything, he left a trail for us to follow on that computer. He'll lead SVU right to the bastard that killed that poor girl, that's a given, but…"

"Could you watch where you're going?" he asked, cutting her off, and he cursed loudly when she swerved to avoid a pothole.

She laughed. "God, you gotta get used to my driving," she teased. "You think this is bad? Wait till we get into a CCA car. I won't even need to have my hands on the wheel…" she shot him a smoky look, watched his eyes darken, and chuckled again, this time low and almost evil. "Pull up that file, open it," she commanded.

Elliot cleared his throat and grabbed his crotch, pulling on his pants again. "You are wicked, woman," he sighed, and then he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He tapped a few buttons, opened the folder, and read through the first few pages. "What am I looking for?"

"Parents' address," she said, turning down a street. "What number am I looking for?"

He scanned and scrolled until he found the page with Casey Douglas's parents' names, address, and other pertinent information. "Three-ninety-seven." He looked out the window and shook his head. "She came from money."

Olivia didn't respond, she simply parked the car on the street in front of the townhouse, turned the key, and moved quickly, bending over the console and kissing Elliot hard, on the mouth, as one hand moved around his neck. She scratched his scalp lightly, knowing but not caring that it would only make him harder and more frustrated. She pulled away and said, "I love you."

His hazy eyes stared into hers, a drugged look on his face almost hid his goofy grin. "I love you, too," he whispered.

"I know," she said, nodding at him. "Only someone who really loved me...would do...what you did." She exhaled and got out of the car, walking up the stone steps to the front door. She closed her eyes as she rang the bell. Aside from cases involving children, this was the worst part of her job.

The woman who answered the door smiled at Olivia, but when her head turned and she saw Elliot, her face paled and she gasped. "Oh, my God."

Olivia realized, then, that Elliot had his badge held out, notifying the woman that they were police officers. "Missus Douglas?" she presumed. When the woman nodded at her, she gave her a soft, apologetic look. "May we come in?"

Missus Douglas moved aside and opened the door wider, letting Olivia and Elliot into her house to change her life.

They spent almost forty minutes with Casey Douglas's mother, another twenty at the medical examiner's office, and thirty-seven trying to hunt down the girl's boyfriend. By the time they got back to the SVU squadroom, it was half-past five, they were hungry, tired, cranky, and had built up a terrible amount of sexual frustration that was was easily hidden by her, not so much by him. He untucked his shirt in the elevator and prayed it was long enough to hide most of his rather large, obvious problem.

"Please," Cragen snapped, seeing them appearing around the bend of the entrance, "Tell me you got something on this!"

Olivia tossed the keys onto Elliot's desk and walked around to her computer. "This was a paid hit," she told her captain. She typed fast, her fingernails clicking against the keys rapidly. "Someone hired a hacker, for a ridiculous amount of money, by the way, to make sure the girl was alone in that kitchen, and couldn't get away." She moved the mouse, clicking a few spots on her screen, and the large one in the back of the squadroom blinked to life. She turned, explaining. "Our vic, Casey Douglas, is the daughter of computer mogul Grant Douglas. Someone texted Casey at seven-thirty this morning, mirroring her ex-boyfriend's number."

"We found the ex-boyfriend, checked his phone, the last time he talked to Casey was three days ago, when they broke up," Elliot added, knowing that someone would ask. "Liv even checked to see if he deleted any messages, or hid anything, and the guy's clean."

Olivia moved to the large board, pointing. "She got the message, telling her to meet him in the student union's cafe at ten, just between breakfast and lunch, because they know the place is empty." She tapped the screen and an eight by ten photo popped up. "At nine-thirty, a mass e-mail was sent out to everyone except Casey, informing them that the student union was closed for emergency asbestos removal."

"This guy," Elliot pointed to the photograph, "Sam Ponalli, paid the guy to hack into the server, send that e-mail, and then corrupt the college's security system at ten minutes to ten. He turned out the lights, shut off the door-locks, and once Casey got into the cafe, he locked her in...with her killer."

Cassidy blinked. "How did you find that guy? Is he the hacker?"

Olivia scoffed, knowing exactly who the hacker was, shook her head. "No, Ponalli is just the money man. There are three transfers from his account into a corporate account, registered to a Bronels Industries, it's a freelance tech firm. Transactions add up to about eighty thousand dollars." She bit her tongue, holding back the name of the CEO of that company, knowing it was her agency's job to nail him. "There are transfers into Ponalli's account from a man named Craig Franklin, adding up to almost double that. I'm waiting for the guys up in TARU to find him, find a connection to…"

Elliot's cell phone rang before she finished speaking, and he chuckled. "Speak of the devil," he chirped, and then answered the phone. "Stabler." His eyes found Olivia's and the excitement in them gave him goosebumps; she was going to love watching him do the job almost as much as he loved watching her. Almost. "Yeah," he said, listening, walking over to the digital white-board. He tapped a file that popped up, and he grinned. "We got it, man. Thanks." He hung up and slapped his phone against his hand. "That's the connection."

Munch moved forward, tilting his head. "So this Franklin guy gets pissed off at bossman for passing him over for a promotion," he said, reading the e-mail that someone up in TARU had sent them. "Uses what's left in his company IRA to pay this Ponalli asshole to hire a hitman and a hacker. He thinks that since the money is only going into and out-of Ponalli's account, no one could link the hacker and hitman to him."

"Exactly," Olivia said, nodding.

Cragen narrowed his eyes, trying to hide the smirk on his face by forcing himself to scowl. "How the hell did you find all this shit out?"

"Liv," Elliot started, shoving one hand in his pocket and scratching the back of his head with the other, "Figured out that someone who'd gotten into the system could've controlled the locks, cameras, and lights remotely. We, uh, well...she, really, I can't do computers." He cleared his throat, trying to somehow explain things without giving up confidential secrets. "She played around with the computer in the security booth, found out someone accessed the mainframe from a wireless ISP registered to a cafe not too far from the school."

Olivia smiled at him, proud of him, and also impressed by his quick thinking and willingness to dive into a world of necessary deceit and manipulation. "By the time we got there, the guy was gone, but, uh, he left his computer behind. I had TARU dump it," she told the room. She left out the rest of the truth, that she and Elliot replicated the computer's hard drive out in the parking lot, deleted any files and communication relating to the CCA, and gave the cleaned-out computer to Morales, holding onto the heavy stuff for her own agents to decrypt and analyze.

It wasn't obstruction, or withholding evidence. She'd given SVU everything they needed to close their case, get justice for their victim, but everything else? It wasn't the NYPD's problem, and was none of their concern. 'Once we get Ponalli, he can give us the hitman."

Cragen nodded, but he knew he was only getting half the story. "So, what are you waiting for? Go nab the bastard."

Elliot raised a brow at Cragen. "We're waiting for warrants, actually," he said, folding his arms. "You forget how this works?"

Cragen chuckled. "No, I just...thought maybe you had some back-alley workaround, a way to cut through the red-tape." He shot Olivia a hard glance. "Why don't you two head out, I know you have that meeting with the feds, right?" He watched Olivia nod, grinned, and then said, "I'll send Munch and Cassidy out to bring back these assholes once we get the go ahead," he said, pointing to the photo and the e-mail.

Olivia stared questioningly at Cragen, but shouted a quick, "Let's go," to Elliot.

Knowing he couldn't refute, he simply followed her back out of the squadroom. "What the hell was that?" he asked in a harsh whisper. "Cragen doesn't know about…"

"No," she interjected firmly. "Not at all. He just...he knows you and I tend to do shit before it's legal. Or so he thinks." She laughed and said, "He thinks we'd rather ask forgiveness rather than permission." Her head turned, she looked at him over her shoulder as they got to the elevator. "He doesn't know we don't need the permission, or the forgiveness."

He grunted again and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Stop fucking looking at me like that." He slammed a hand against the side of the elevator and dropped his head back against it. "I'm fucking harder than a goddamn titanium rod, and you're…" he narrowed his eyes as he saw her phone in his hands. "Who the hell could you possibly be texting right..."

He stopped talking when the elevator jerked to a stop, the lights above them blinked and turned dark, and he felt her body slam into his with such force, the elevator shook. He couldn't see anything, but he felt her lips on his, her tongue prying his mouth open to invade and tangle with his. Moaning, he grabbed her ass, cupping, squeezing, lifting her, pressing her against him as he rocked his hips out of reflex. "Oh, fuck," he spat on a heavy breath, feeling her right hand shove into his pants and wrap around his aching length. "Jesus fucking Christ," he growled, his hips now thrusting rhythmically as she stroked him fast, squeezing tight, fucking her hand.

"Eager, hmm?" she teased, licking a long line from the bend of his shoulder to behind his ear. She bit, then, making him cry out her name as she tugged faster, harder, tighter. "Come on, baby," she cooed into his ear, smoothing her other hand down his body, into his slacks. She cupped her palm over his tip, keeping up with her furious movements, ready to catch whatever he let fly. She nipped at his earlobe again, her hot breath antagonizing him, hitting him deep, making him shiver.

"Oh, fuck, Liv," he cried, his eyes shut tight. His hands clawed at her body, his knee found its way between her legs and he ground out another fiery curse when she began to move, rocking herself against him, riding his thigh as he held her close. "Holy shit," he whisper-panted, feeling his body tighten and throb as his thigh grew hotter. "Stop. Fucking...stop," he commanded, and he pulled her hands away from him. He muttered something under his breath as he spun them around, slamming her into the back wall of the elevator. He yanked down her black pants, a sinister laugh escaping at the knowledge the she wasn't wearing anything else. He shoved down his pants and kissed her feverishly as he impaled her in one smooth thrust.

Her scream was caught by his kiss, her nails scratched at the back of his head, and she was powerless against his pummelling. Her high-toned moans were swallowed by his greedy mouth, her body completely under his spell, under his control. She felt his fingers leaving imprints on her waist, and she beamed with the realization that he was definitely bruising other parts of her body. "Elliot," she whimpered, rolling her head to the side, allowing him to do what she knew he longed to do.

He latched his lips onto her throat as he hummed a response.

"Fuck, baby," she seethed, his teeth sinking into her skin. "I'm gonna…"

His mouth covered hers again as he pounded harder, slapping sounds filling the small box, and when he felt her clamp and pulse, throbbing around him, he hit into her one final time and spilled over, shooting into her.

They stayed still, slowly kissing, her legs around his waist and her back against the wall, and she sighed when she felt him lowering her to the floor. "Holy shit, that's not what I…"

He kissed her quickly and smiled. "You get to be the boss at work," he said, dragging the pad of his thumb across her lips. "I take control, when I need to, in other ways," he winked as he adjusted his pants, and shoved his shirttails where they belonged.

She took a deep breath as she, too, fixed her clothes and shook out her hair, and she wiped the corners of her mouth with one hand as she pulled out her cell phone again. She laughed at the look he was giving her when, as she pushed a button, the elevator started up again, the lights and cameras blinking back to life. She wiggled her phone a bit, and said, "All you ever need to do is ask."

He let out a loud laugh, shaking his head, and when the doors opened, he leaned over to her and whispered, "I love you, too."

She winked, leading him out of the elevator, and she checked her watch. "Before you ask...because I know you're going to ask...Cragen thinks we have a meeting with Porter, since you're the federal liaison." She let him unlock the car and move toward the driver's seat, figuring they had enough heart-pounding action for the moment. "It's only because you have to be with me on this shit, now. Before, Tucker was my go-to, whenever I needed to…"

"So, wait, all those times Cragen told me you were in Tucker's office, trying to get my ass out of trouble," he spoke, starting the car. "You were in meetings at CCA?"

"Or interrogations, briefings, debriefings," she added. "But, uh, now...it's you and me, El."

"As it should be," he told her, smiling. He drove from memory, having only been their headquarters once, but recently enough to still be fresh. "So, uh, what am I, exactly?" He coughed and turned the wheel. "I have access to your office, which...you said no one else does, right?"

"Thought you said you read your agreement," she teased. "You're my partner." She said it so simply, so plainly, and it encompassed more than she knew he would understand.

He blinked as he turned down another street. "Partner...how? Like, they all have to listen to me, too?"

Her laugh was boisterous, her eyes shutting as her head threw itself back against the chair. "No, uh, no. No, they wouldn't just...hand that to you." She swallowed as she calmed. "You're with me on all of it, though. If I told them to follow your orders, they would have to, and you get to help me run logistics, tactics, you're with me on cases, interrogations…" she pressed her lips together, debating whether or not she should tell him, if now was a good time. "And, um...partner, as in...life." She sighed, throwing her shoulders back, trying to calm herself down.

"Life?" he queried, parking by the curb in front of the ominous CCA building. "These suits know that we…"

"Know? No," she said, her smile growing. "But if we weren't already involved, the, uh, agreement you signed would force you and me to, um, cohabitate." She wagged her brows. "Among other things." She chuckled at his wide-eyed face. "That's not usually part of the contract, don't look at me like that." She got out of the car, waited for him to follow, and once he was by her side, she said, "Nelson saw the video, read about you in my file, and me in yours. He was trying to fuck with your life, he didn't know he was only speeding up a few things." Her smile faded. "It was really me he wanted to trap, with that," she whispered, pressing her thumb to the door's sensor. The doors swung open and she looked at him. "He knows about my, uh, history of failed relationships, thought that by making it part of the job, I'd…"

"Quit," Elliot finished, understanding. "So that's why everything with Kathy happened so damn fast. We needed to be officially, uh, cohabitating," he laughed, making quotes in the air with his fingers as he said the word, "Before I started on the books." He followed her down the now-familiar path, through the busy lobby, the corridor of offices and labs, the center of the technical universe, the ridiculous library, up the spiral stairs to her secluded space. "Can I?" he asked, his eyes desperate and his smile wide.

She laughed at his innocent ambition. She moved aside and held out a hand. "Don't blink," she reminded him. She watched as Elliot positioned himself in front of the laser-light, it's red beam scanning over his face, focusing on his eyes. With a proud rise of her chin and an adoring smile, she noticed he didn't flinch at all. Her door unlocked and she followed him in, gesturing to a second chair now perched behind her desk. "Like I said," she told him. "Partners."

He rubbed his hands together and snickered, and then dropped into his new chair. "How do I get that little robot guy…"

"IAN," she said, sitting on the corner of her desk. "Just ask him to come in here," she shrugged. "The system uses voice recognition, so your bot will know that it's you asking, and where you are."

He eyed her skeptically, cleared his throat, and said, loudly, "Hey, uh, Ian...come in here, please." He looked around as if he expected something to come through the walls, or drop from the ceiling, but instead, he heard a soft knock on the door.

With an impish grin, Olivia got up and answered, letting the small, quick bot roll into her office. It whizzed over to Elliot, gave a small bow, and with his mechanical voice, asked, "How can be of assistance, Agent Stabler?"

"That is so fucking cool!" Elliot shouted, kneeling down to play with the robot. He shook its hand, danced with it, even played a short game of catch with a marble. "Man, this is...this is unbelievable." He watched as the robot tilted it's tiny head, as if he was somehow offended. "Not...no, buddy, um...can you please bring Agent Benson and me a couple of bottles of water?"

"Coming right up," the IAN's tinny voice spoke, and then he zoomed back out through the still open door.

Elliot got to his feet, smiling like a kid in a candy store, and he looked at Olivia. "You really are the woman of my dreams, you know that?"

Laughing, she told him to sit down again, knowing that the man they were meeting with was only a few feet away from the door. "Let me do all the talking," she told him.

"Wouldn't even know what to say," he muttered, his lips stuck somewhere between a grimace and smirk.

Before she could say anything to him, a man appeared in the doorway, he was hunched over, panting, his hands on his knees. His face was stark white and his green eyes wide, hidden partly behind shaggy black hair and partly behind thick glasses. "Apologies," he breathed. "My droid...recorded the time...as eight, not...not seven...so, I...I'm sorry." He wandered into the office and practically fell into the chair in front of the desk. "Who…" he wheezed, pointing at Elliot. "Who are you?"

"Agent Stabler," he said with a cocky stroke of his tie and lick of his lips. "Benson's partner."

"Oh," the man said, managing to lose even more color. "So that...that happened, huh?" He looked over his shoulder. "Missed my shot, I guess."

Olivia scoffed. "You never had one, Decker," she spat, and she slammed the door, making the jittery agent jump. "Why," she asked as she moved slowly toward the man, "Are there monkeys...in...my...lab." She grabbed the collar of his lab coat, her jaw clenched, her eyes fierce.

"Well, uh, see…" Decker coughed, pushed his glasses back up on his nose, and tried to smile at Olivia. "The thing with that is…"

"You had orders," she interrupted, tossing him down into the chair. "And I remember telling you that you couldn't order any fucking monkeys!"

Hal Decker held out both hands, as if pleading with her and keeping her at bay at the same time. "Agent Benson, listen, I needed the monkeys...it was the only way I could...see, their brains are the closest to…"

"Decker, you'd better not be telling me you are performing brain surgery on cute, innocent, little monkeys!" Olivia roared, making Decker yelp and jump again.

Elliot his his mouth behind his hand, hiding his silent laughter. He was greatly enjoying this.

Decker shook his head vigorously. "No, no, Ma'am," he said, and then he cleared his throat. He wiped his sweating brow with the sleeve of his black lab coat, and he took a breath. "I have extensive research that shows the human brain is capable of far more than we realize. I've developed a drug...a safe, effective drug...no side-effects thus far," he rattled off, "That will make the user fully capable of tapping into every, single sector of the brain, thought processing is ten times faster, agility and problem solving and...oh, and the things one would be able to remember and recall! Things...from birth...Agent Benson, the power this agency could have if…"

"Why the fucking monkeys?" she hissed, her jaw still tight.

Elliot looked on, bemused, and he wondered if Olivia had ever been involved in any animal rights organizations or protests. He made a mental note to ask her.

Decker held a hand over his heart and bowed his head. "I know, I know I broke protocol, and I broke the rules, but the drug was ready for testing, and it's against regulation to use human test subjects until we're sure it works, and we couldn't use droids or bots for this, we needed a biological brain, Ma'am."

She bit her lip, hearing the soft knock of the IAN at the door. She saw Elliot get up so she wouldn't have to move, and she leaned closer to Decker. "So, you tested this drug on the monkeys?" She watched Decker nod, afraid but yet proud. "Does...does it work?"

"Oh, yes, Ma'am," Decker said, grinning. "We ran Roger, he's a monkey, down to Control, gave him instructions coming in from a case, and he worked faster and more accurately than…"

"What case?" Elliot asked, appearing at Olivia's side with a bottle of water, opened and ready for her, and the IAN perched on his shoulder.

Olivia stifled a chuckle as she took the water with a nod, and then looked back at Decker. "Answer him."

"Well, um," Decker coughed again. "Yours, Ma'am."

Olivia's eyes narrowed. "A monkey...a monkey was able to find all the intel we needed, including decrypted files and bank statements?"

Decker nodded. "Faster than any of the agents in Recon, Ma'am," he said. "We timed it. Roger worked ninety-two percent faster with one hundred percent accuracy." He pulled down his lab coat. "Not as fast as the bots, but definitely…"

"No side effects?" she asked, cutting him off. "These monkeys, they're completely healthy, happy?"

Decker grinned again. "Absolutely, Ma'am," he said smugly. "The only...well, uh, Hopper, one of our chimps, he...certain muscles and, um, parts, are larger and stronger, and he has a nearly unstoppable libido, but Lucy, his mate, isn't complaining. You should see them doing the New York Times crossword together, every time the find a word that fits, they…"

"I don't need that visual," Olivia said, closing her eyes, holding up a hand, and trying to ignore Elliot's snickering. She exhaled, and she looked Decker right in the eyes. "You let me know when you need a couple human guinea pigs for this." She shot a knowing glance toward Elliot. "I think I can find two for you."

 **A/N: Whuuuuuuuuut? Does Cragen know more than he's letting on? And we finally meet Brody Nelson, and...someone else?**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: They find Brody...but he has an excuse. And...are they testing that drug? Hmm.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything except the written words. Dick Wolf, please do not sueth me, I ameth merely a fan with a vivid imagination.**

"I swear," a rugged looking man in a black suit dragged a hand across his stubbled chin. Beneath the short, soft brown beard, there was a boyish face and a magnetic charm, it was lost on Olivia. He gave her an apologetic glance. "I had no idea he would actually…"

Olivia stopped him with a hard look. "Eli," she said, and she shot Elliot a look when he answered her. "Not you, I don't call you that. No one...no one fucking calls you that. It's _his_ name," she explained, watching his face instantly contort into an even more violent scowl. She turned back to the other guy. "Eli, I don't think you had anything to do with Nelson going rogue, but I do need you to tell me where he is. I know you know."

Elijah Mundo scratched the back of his neck, letting out a breath. "He didn't tell me about any of this," the agent told her, and he propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his chin into his hands. "All I know is it...when he dug deeper into your file, into your life, it was like...someone flipped a switch. He wasn't in it for the job anymore, he used all of his resources to try to make you miserable."

"I get that," Olivia nodded, running her tongue along her lips and eyeing Elliot again. "I need to know why, and I need to get him in the box, he has to answer some…"

"Last time he checked in," Mundo sighed, still looking up into her eyes, "Two days ago. Told me he was at the power bank in Queens." He rubbed one of his hands over his face and sniffled, cleared his throat, and stifled a yawn. "He, uh, he turned off the cams and deactivated the bot, so there's no way to…"

"Mother fucker," Olivia hissed, slapping a hand down onto the table and rising from her perch on its corner.

Elijah grinned as she turned, his eyes glued to her ass. He had a girlfriend, and because of Nelson's extensive research and reporting, he knew she was involved with someone, too. It just didn't keep him from staring, or wanting, or craving. He licked his lips and leaned back in his chair, his grin widening.

"Hey, pal," Elliot spoke, his voice gravelly. "Eyes up, huh?"

Olivia turned sharply, narrowing her eyes, and then rolling them at Mundo. "Please," she scoffed, "Focus, here." She folded her arms and walked over to Elliot, dropping one hand to his right shoulder, the other staying across her body. "Tag it, find out if he's still there."

Elijah whipped out a palm-sized device, tapped in a few things, and curled over as it did its job.

Elliot looked over his shoulder, reaching up to lay a hand over hers, and raised a brow. "What's this guy's story, and why does he keep looking at you like he wants to fuck you?"

"He does," she said flatly, matter-of-factly, and she jutted her chin toward him as she dragged their now linked hands down Elliot's arm. "Agent Elijah Mundo, same unit as Brody Nelson. He's, uh, he's a lot like you." She looked down, into his blue eyes. "Aside from having a close enough name," she laughed. "He's a Marine, divorced father, wicked temper, obsessed with video games." Her eyes turned up, toward Mundo, "And he, uh, he has parent issues."

"You're a Marine?" Elliot called over to him, for the first time sounding less murderous.

"Battlefield forensics and weaponry, two tours," Mundo looked up at Elliot and something registered, he smirked. "Ooh-rah!"

Elliot nodded reverently. "Semper Fi," he intoned, slapping a hand over his arm, where his globe and anchor tattoo lay beneath his suit and shirt sleeves. He noticed, as he turned around again, Olivia had moved her other hand from her stomach to her neck, and she was running a gold pendant up and down its chain. He blinked once, smiling warmly, and he said, "You remember what...what I asked you when I gave you that necklace?"

She nodded, peering down at him. "You remember the answer I gave you?"

He was about to say something, when Mundo's words cut him off.

"He's still there," Elijah said, getting up and walking fast over to them. "According to the tab, he's accessing the network from the…"

"Sorry," Elliot interjected, "Tab?"

"Tab, like...keeping tabs on someone?" Mundo said, sneering. "Still got a lot to learn," he spat, shaking his head.

Elliot ignored the snide remark, but asked another question. "Where is he, exactly? You said...before you said he was at something called a power bank?"

Olivia ran her fingers through Elliot's short hair, letting her nails scrape along his scalp, and she said, "It's what the CCA uses for field agents, when they're on an op and can't make it back to base. Or if they need a safe house. They're fully stocked and furnished houses, equipped with food, extra gear, full access to the network, communications uplink, and it's undetectable on satellite, bug-proof, and if the need ever arises, there's a button...um…"

"The place can self-destruct," Mundo spoke for her, and he tapped more buttons on his handheld unit. "Benson, uh...he's uploading files to…"

Before he could finish, her phone beeped, and when she opened the alert, her eyes widened. "Fucking hell," she hissed. "Well, at least we...we have the answers we needed. I didn't authorize this op, so how did he…"

"His cover gig," Mundo said, "Probably Avery's idea, she has no idea this organization even exists, she's always throwing Brody and me into shit like this, and we can't go to you unless we know it's not going to compromise…"

"And because he knew it got kicked over to SVU, it would have compromised all of us," Elliot concluded. He let out a short breath and got to his feet. "Thanks," he said curtly to Mundo, and then he twisted to the side and grabbed Olivia's arm. "Let's take one of those, uh, driverless cars you were telling me about."

She chuckled, heading through the office doors with Elliot, waving a hand over her head to say goodbye to Elijah, and as they walked down the hall, she spoke louder. "Benson, requesting vehicle eight, out front, ETA one minute."

A beep sounded from the wall's internal speakers, and the building's voice returned, "Vehicle eight, pulling up now, Agent Benson."

"This job," Elliot laughed, tugging on the cuffs of his shirt, "Is fucking awesome." He dropped one hand to the dip in her back, just before the curve of her ass, and he growled slightly.

She arched a brow at him, her lips curling to one side. "You're in a mood."

He lowered his voice and leaned into her as he pushed through the front doors of the building. "Those, uh, those pills…" he said, reaching for the handle of the car door, "I think they're starting to work." The door flew open before he could touch it, and he helped Olivia into the car before sliding in after her.

"Two sixty four, Seventy-third avenue, Glen Oaks, Queens," Olivia called out, feeling Elliot's hands on her as she heard him gasp when the car started on its own. She smirked, "And no, it's, uh, it's not a coincidence." She turned in his hold, looked into his eyes, and told him, "I spent a lot of time at that house, my whole first year at SVU, for, uh, obvious reasons."

Elliot grinned. "You wanted me, then, and you want me now," he whispered. His fingers tugged apart the buttons on her button down shirt as the car started moving. He groaned lowly when he felt her hands slide down his chest and rest between his legs, grabbing and rubbing him through his pants. "Fuck," he cursed.

She bit her lip, feeling him already throbbing, and she rolled her eyes when it took just a bit longer to run her hand from root to tip. She remembered Decker's words, what he'd said would happen within the first hour or so after taking the pills. She let out a laugh that seemed to come from somewhere deep, and she rubbed him again, hearing him hiss out another hard curse as he fumbled with her bra. Briefly, she wondered when the speed and power and higher intellect would hit, but when he clamped his teeth around one of her nipples, she lost all thought. "Oh, God, damn," she cried, falling back against the car door.

He mumbled something, her nipple muffling his words, and he shoved her hands away from his aching dick, moving faster to get her pants down around her hips. He felt her grabbing his belt and yanking it, undoing the buckle. "Shit," he breathed, feeling himself getting harder, bigger. "Fucking...fuck."

As soon as she unzipped his pants, he sprung free and her hand moved to wrap around his shaft, stroking in long, slow motions. She swiped her thumb over his tip, moaning when he twitched in her hand. "Shit, Elliot," she breathed.

He curled one of his hands around both of her wrists and pulled her hands above her head. He gazed down at her and as he pushed into her, he dropped his head to hers and kissed her, slow, at first, and deep. He inched deeper, moaning against her lips, and when he felt his pelvis kiss hers, he growled and kissed her harder, faster.

Her eyes screwed shut as he began to thrust, his girth and length filling her, moving within her, driving her to the brink of bliss. "Elliot," she moaned, her hips rising to meet his quickening thrusts. She had her answer, now, his increased speed and strength showing themselves in the most perfect ways. "Oh, my God," she cried, trying to pull her hands out of his.

He chuckled, shaking his head, brushing his nose and lips against hers. "No, baby," he said, "Remember what I told you. You're not in control, right now." He kissed her roughly, asserting the dominance he craved, thrusting harder, moving even faster, knowing that there was little traffic and they were running out of time.

She whimpered as she rolled her body upward, taking him all the way in again. When he pulled out, she moaned his name and lifted her head, biting his shoulder and making him yell another loud cuss.

The car filled with their moans, grunts, harsh words, and the sound of slapping skin and hitting bodies. "Jesus, baby," she groaned, her eyes rolling toward the back of her head. "So...so fucking close."

"I know," he said through his gritted teeth, "Fuck, I always know when you're gonna fucking cum." He crashed his mouth into hers again, invading her, pressing her down into the car's seat as his lower body pummeled her.

Moans were passed from her mouth to his, cries of each other's name were swallowed by wrestling tongues and desperate lips.

"Fuck," he spat, biting down on her lower lip. "Baby, fuck," he breathed. "I love you."

Maybe it was his words, maybe it was the way he twisted his hips in just the right way, maybe it was his enhanced endowment, but she came hard almost as soon as the words hit her ears. Her back arched, forcing her body into a curve. Her hips slammed into his one final time, her high-pitched cry was muffled by his kiss and his moan.

He felt her clamp around him like a vice, imprisoning him. He couldn't pull out, but his release was triggered by the intense pulsations of her around him. He let out a loud, ferocious growl as he fired away, and he shivered, a trembling moan escaping as he felt hot wetness sliding down his inner thighs. "Holy fucking…" he swallowed hard, closing his eyes. "God, baby."

She collapsed onto the seat, he fell onto her, their arms fell around each other. Their kisses were soft and quick, now, their hearts beating at the same frantic pace.

"You have arrived at your destination," the car's autonomous voice declared, and the irony caused Olivia and Elliot to share a playful laugh and another long kiss.

After taking a few minutes to redress and compose themselves, they got out of the car and rolled out any residual tension from their shoulders and necks, walking in synchronized steps to the front door of the small, nondescript house.

Elliot tried to think of the many times he'd driven down this street without noticing the place, and he said, "The address to this place doesn't…"

"Comes up in a normal search as an empty lot," she told him, cutting him off. "She pressed her thumb against the front of the doorknob, and she huffed when the door beeped twice and then opened. "Nelson!" she called, moving slowly into the house, taking hold of her gun.

Elliot moved silently, quickly, his own gun now poised and aimed, and he rounded the corner into the next room. "Brody Nelson?"

A young, dark skinned man sat at a small table, a laptop out and open, his tee shirt clinging to modest muscles. "Top o'the morning, Detective," he quipped. Then his smirk grew. "Or...it's Agent now, eh?"

Elliot lowered his gun, not finding him to be a threat, and he said, "Yeah, thanks for that, by the way." He holstered his weapon and gave him an evil smile. "I mean it, I'm happier than a pig in shit, and in a way, I owe it all to you." He took a step closer to Nelson. "What did you think you were doing, huh?"

"Just sped things up for you," Nelson said as he clicked keys and tapped his screen. "Didn't do anything that wasn't already in the works. Fucking with you? That was just me having some fun, and proving that the NYPD had serious gaps in security."

"Right," Elliot scoffed.

"We got your intel," Olivia said, moving into the room to sit beside Nelson. "You should have told me, It would have save me a lot of…"

"I apologize," Nelson told her, sounding sincere, "But things happened...the way they needed to happen. As for that stunt I pulled with your, uh, partner, that was only half personal vendetta." He looked at Elliot, grinning smugly, and then turned back to Olivia. "I needed to get him involved, fast, because someone in your unit is…"

"Trying to infiltrate the agency, keeping tabs on all of the detectives, hoping to figure out who's on the CCA payroll and who's not," Elliot deduced, "Someone wants hands in it, and since no offer has been made, they assume someone is the unit is too high a priority, they think that by taking the current agent out, it'll leave an opening for them." He smirked. "Right?"

Brody nodded, and then turned his attention toward the computer in front of him. "I gave you everything I had on the Douglas case, it'll lead you to a slam dunk on Paul Broncuso, your killer. He's a sadistic bastard, specializing in…"

"Torture and mutilation, often of a sexual nature, with extremely aggressive…" he stopped, seeing the goofy grin on Olivia's face and the mix of emotion in her eyes. "What?"

"How many times did you read that file?" she asked him, already knowing the answer.

"Once," he said, winking at her. "Memorized it," he told her, and he knew, then, that the monkeys were an investment that paid off, after all. "Any ideas who's trying to take us out?"

Nelson tapped more keys and shook his head. "They aren't specifically targeting you," he said to both of them. "But they've been running a lot of searches for known CCA agents, coming up empty because we hide our tracks. They're trying to sniff out who the SVU plant is, and I knew...if they ever found out it was you, Benson, we'd all be fucked. I thought I needed to scare Stabler into taking the gig…"

"Because you didn't know I already told him everything," she interrupted. "No one knows. I wasn't really allowed to do it." She didn't sound sorry, because she wasn't. "You needed him to take the job, as soon as possible to…"

"Protect you," Nelson said, looking back at her. "And protect the agency. With him by your side," he started, "No one is even getting close enough to smell your perfume." He hit another button, hard, and said, "I hope this means you forgive me? I was just doing my job."

Olivia let out a heavy sigh. "I can look past roping Elliot into something he wasn't ready for, but I…" she narrowed her eyes. "You didn't screw with the security cameras, or the locks at that school, did you?"

He closed his eyes slowly. "I was trying to counter the attack," he told her. "The whole thing...was a set up. I posed as a hacker, took the deal, but I was never going to trap that girl…" he shook his head. "I set up shop in that cafe, accessed the cameras and the locks, because I knew he'd check. But I swear, I was never going to feed her to that sick bastard." He pulled a small flash drive out of his computer. "While I was in the school's system, someone else was attacking from the other end. They were working faster, cutting me off at every turn, like they knew what I was going to do before I did it." He handed her the drive. "I recorded everything, and I've been trying to trace the hack, they...they covered their tracks, better than any agent we have."

There was a moment of silence. At once, Olivia and Elliot looked at each other, their eyes wide. Olivia squinted and her jaw tightened as she spoke. "Decker, and his fucking monkeys."

 **A/N: Who else at SVU is trying to get into the CCA, and what does that stand for, anyway?**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Who controls the monkeys? Who's trying to get into the CCA?.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything except the written words. Dick Wolf, please do not sueth me, I ameth merely a fan with a vivid imagination.**

"You lying sack of shit," Elliot sneered, peering across the metal table at Agent Decker. "You…"

"N-no," Decker stammered, not letting Elliot make another accusation. He was already nervous beyond anything he'd ever experienced, terrified of both his boss, Olivia, and her new partner, who wasn't aware of CCA Interrogative Strategy, or lack thereof. "I would never...ever…" he blinked and wiped his profusely sweating forehead with the sleeve of his black lab coat. "I brought them into the Hub for testing, my directions were clear: they were instructed to find you, Ma'am. I timed their tracking, calculated their accuracy, I told them to hack into your NYPD computer and upload ridiculous Eighties music, but I never told them to do anything…"

"That's why we couldn't get it to stop playing Love Shack," Elliot chuckled. He sobered, then, his eyes narrowed. "Who else knew how to control your monkeys?" He blinked suddenly, stiffening and straightening up. "I asked that," he mumbled, looking at Olivia. "Is this the fucking Wizard of Oz? I'm asking about monkeys? This is...not what I expected."

Olivia laughed at him and then stepped out of the corner she'd been leaning in, giving Elliot a shot at his first official CCA interrogation. "Deck," she began, trying to appeal to the agent's humanity by using a nickname. "Listen, this doesn't look good for you. We know the hack came from the Hub, we know it was your little lab buddies, we got it all on film, but someone was out of view of the lens, and the imprint the room picked up? Yours. So explain."

Decker flinched. 'Wait..imprint...my…?" He'd gone white. "Agent Benson," he started, his voice low, and he shifted and leaned closer to her. "If we left Agent Stabler alone in your office...after, uh, you two had sex...the building would think you were there. Same with you. See, uh, during intercourse, the chemical makeup of the body transfers...mixes...with your...with the other…"

"So," Elliot interjected, shoving his sleeves up, the way he often did just before getting intimidating, getting the confession. "The last person you fucked took control of your monkey minions and because you left your stench behind, the tech in the Hub…" he paused. "Whoever it is knew that, huh? You're being framed."

Olivia turned, pride in her features, a smile on her face. "Damn, El," she winked at him. Then, she let her eyes drag down his body, licking her lips when she got to the impressive bulge in his pants, her eyes narrowing and darkening slightly at the full outline of him, bigger and harder than he had been that morning. Without tearing her eyes away from his dick, she grinned more broadly and said, "Deck, those pills of yours are amazing."

With a new arrogance, Elliot took a step forward, and his clear cockiness shined in his smirk, the way he glared at Decker, and the way his hand ran down Olivia's back, unconcerned with professionalism, knowing he was above it. "Who was it?" he asked, tilting his head. "Who, in that lab, would betray the agency, help someone commit murder for…"

"Gravelin," Decker said, his eyes closing. "Man, I am such a fucking idiot." He shook his head in shame, sinking in his seat, and again, wiped his brow. "I thought...I thought she actually…" he laughed at himself. "No, right? I mean...no. Someone like her…" he looked up at Olivia. "Girls like you, they don't usually want guys like me."

"Hey, Deck," Olivia said, smiling at him. "Nerds are sexy." She winked and spoke louder, clearer, addressing the building's PAS. "Benson," she called out, "Orders for Agent Montgomery and Agent Trent, detain and interrogate Agent Gravelin, case number CD-two-nine-seven-one, send files through personal uplink."

A low beep filled the room and the surprisingly cheerful voice spoke back, "Interrogation room seventeen, commencing in twenty minutes, confirm, Benson?"

"Confirm," Olivia called, and she rose from her spot on the table.

Elliot looked at her, confused. "That's it?" he asked, seeming confused, irritated. "I don't get to do any of the fun stuff?"

Olivia pulled him by his tie toward the glass doors, turned, and pressed her nose against his. "The fun hasn't started yet," she winked, "But as far as this goes…" she looked up toward the ceiling. "These rooms, they're equipped with biologically calibrated lie-detectors, if he even thought about lying, or even not telling the whole truth, it would have tripped the sensors and he would've gotten a pretty nasty shock." She ran her hands down his arms. "I'm letting other agents handle the tail end of this, because I want to go home. It's been a long fucking day, and you know we're getting called into the unit before the sun comes up."

"What do we do with him?" he asked, tossing his head back in Decker's direction.

"When he calms down, he can go back to his lab," she explained. "Like I said, he didn't lie to us. He didn't even think about lying." She looked over at the lab tech, sadly. "He needs to be alone for a while, anyway. He's also dealing with a broken heart, right now. He thought…"

"I know what he thought," Elliot nodded glumly, looking back down at her. "She was just using him, using the agency. Using...using us, by default." He held his thumb over the sensor on the doors, and when they opened, he pushed them wider and led her out of the room. "I just realized…" he cleared his throat, and he grabbed her hand. "Before this thing with us started, I thought...even if I made a move, there would be no way in hell...because you were...are...way outta my league. That first night, when I took a shot and asked you to…"

"I remember what you asked me to do," she chuckled, pressing her thumb against the metal panel on the hall doors. They opened automatically, and she gave him a playful shove.

He smiled and pulled her along, linking their fingers. "I woke up knowing...I was fucking sure as hell you'd tell me something like...ya know, 'Thanks, you were great, not gonna happen again," he laughed at the absurdity of his thoughts now. "I'm a lucky bastard, baby," he said, stopping, looking into her eyes. His free hand moved up her side and came to rest against her face. "You didn't regret it, you didn't turn away from me when I asked you...to do it again, and you...you really do love me."

She bit her lip and nodded. "Yeah," she whispered, moving slowly, closer to him. "I really do." Their lips met and she moaned against his kiss, looping her hands around his neck.

His smile widened, their kiss deepening, and he lifted her a few inches off the ground and rocked his hips, letting her feel that the pills weren't the only thing keeping him harder than a baseball a bat. "I love you," he breathed, letting her drop back to the floor. "So fucking much."

She took a deep breath, then tugged on his hand gently, telling him to take her home. The car was waiting right where they'd left it, and the back doors opened on their own, welcoming them. Elliot helped her slide into the seat, crawled in and settled beside her, and then pulled her into his arms, into his lap, and kissed her again.

It didn't go further, not now, just hands slipping up under white button down shirts, slipping into black designer pants, feeling hot flesh that twitched on contact, sharing soft moans and prayers. She held him in his hands and marveled at the girth of him, how absolutely rigid he was, how the pills only emphasized not augmented, the way doing bicep curls would increase the mass in his arms.

"Fuck," he seethed, bucking his hips upward, tears springing to his eyes as she felt her thumb graze over the sensitive, swollen tip of his dick. He moaned her name when her nail dipped into the small slit, flicking lightly, and he whimpered, knowing he promised himself that he wouldn't just fuck her this time. "Baby, please," he whispered, his hands coming to the front of her body, under her shirt. He shoved down the satin cups of her bra and grazed his fingertips over her hardened nipples. He grabbed and squeezed, letting out a groan at the way her eyes rolled back and her head dropped.

She tugged, stroked, rocking into him as his mouth found its way to her neck, his teeth digging into her skin. "My God," she breathed, shivering at his ministrations. "Elliot, baby, we shouldn't…"

"I know," he mumbled, his mouth filled with her pulsing throat. "Fuck, I know, and I don't think…" he pulled away from her and dropped his forehead against hers, their eyes locked as one of his hands worked between their bodies and into her pants again, swiping up her wet heat. "We were fucking insatiable before, this isn't those fucking pills, but they...shit, they make it impossible to...fucking stop." He growled, his body beginning to tingle and burn. "Oh, God, Liv," he moaned, giving in, caving.

"Oh, shit, baby," she gasped, feeling another one of his thick, rough fingers push its way into her, making her body rise and bend to his will. "Oh, my God, fucking...Elliot...honey…" she panted.

"Might as well fucking cum, baby," he chuckled, "Kids are gonna be home, couple of them probably still awake, we have...to explain...not gonna have time to…" he grunted as she jerked him harder, faster, his words had clearly had an effect on her. "Look at me," he demanded.

Her eyes met his again, her body bucking, riding three of his talented fingers.

"Baby," he moaned, "Cum for me." His voice was low, dripping with the dominance he asserted in the bedroom, or, in this case, the car. "Fucking, now, Liv."

Always one to obey, her body seized and her lips crashed into his to muffle the scream that flew out of her mouth when she finally succumbed to the built up tension and fire, letting go for him.

He chuckled, victoriously and rather proudly, feeling wetness trickle down his wrist as he pumped her still, not letting her get away with only one. "Harder," he whispered against her lips, "Faster." His eyes screwed shut as, once again, she obeyed, and he twisted his fingers, his thumb finding her clit, bringing on a second incredible release for her. He wasn't exploding without her.

"Destination, ETA one minute," the car spat, oblivious to what was happening on its leather seats.

"Oh, fuck," Olivia breathed, holding onto him as her wracked body moved faster, her tightly gripping hand moving over him rapidly, feverishly. "Elliot, I can't...oh, my God." Short, breathy gasps, high pitched moans, and a cry of his name as she felt him begin to spill over her hand, over her fingers.

He couldn't hold on anymore, and he crashed into her, his tongue invading her mouth roughly, her name and God's mixing on her lips. He fired away and moaned again, feeling her cum around his fingers.

"Arriving at destination," the car declared, and the two passengers laughed as they kissed and tried to adjust themselves, not willing to explain disheveled appearances to the four confused kids in the house.

When they'd calmed down, the car let them out, and Elliot held her hand as they walked up the steps and made their way into the house. "Hey," Elliot said casually, nodding once at his oldest daughter, sitting on the couch. He was still out of breath, his body still twitching, but he smiled and moved to her, kissing her forehead. "Everyone else asleep?"

"Yeah," Maureen yawned. "Mom...mom's gone." She didn't sound sad, or hurt, just factual. "Hey, Liv."

"Hi, sweetheart," Olivia said, smiling.

"You staying, tonight?" the girl asked, her head back, staring at Olivia with a small smile.

"I am," Olivia replied with a wink. "Probably getting called in, soon, so…" she rolled her eyes dramatically. "Thank God your father doesn't snore." She watched the young girl laugh, and then turned left, heading into Elliot's bedroom, leaving him to explain the finer points of 'amicable divorce' to his eleven year old daughter. She peeled off the layers of her black suit, and as she unbuttoned her shirt, she laughed. The wrong buttons were in the wrong holes, and it was on backwards. Rolling her eyes, she tossed it into the wicker hamper.

As she moved toward the dresser to her left, she unhooked her bra and let it fall, and when her hand wrapped around the knob on the middle drawer, her mind wandered. Someone at work, someone she trusted, had been plotting to take down one of her agents, maybe even her, to weasel his way into the agency. _Her_ agency.

"She, uh…" his mouth had gone dry the moment he walked into the room, her naked body sending shockwaves through his system. He rubbed his eyes, trying to keep his arousal under some semblance of control, his muscles still weak, his dick still too sensitive and achy. "Shit," he mumbled to himself, feeling his cock twitch and rise. With a grunt, he shook his head, moving closer to her, and he sighed when she pulled one of his too-large tee shirts over her head. He wrapped his arms around her and dropped his chin to the crook of her neck. "She asked me how long it would take me to ask you out, now that Kathy's...gone." He kissed the small bit of skin peeking out from the loose collar of the shirt.

"What?" she laughed, raising a brow. "Your kids…"

"Know," he nodded, "At least, they know I'm crazy about you. They've seen us, they...they're fully aware how love works, and they know that...I wasn't in love with Kathy." He shrugged and moved away from her, taking off his suit and dropping its pieces into the laundry basket. He bent down and picked up a pair of grey sweatpants that had only been worn the night before, for barely ten minutes, and tugged them on, leaving himself bare-chested. He walked over to the bed, pulled down the sheets, and laughed as he asked her, "So wanna go to dinner sometime?"

Rolling her eyes, she got into bed, turned out the light on the nightstand, and shimmied closer to him. Feeling him envelope her, she sighed, smiling. "If we ever have time to go to dinner," she joked. She nestled herself closer, wrapped her arms and legs around him, and dropped a soft kiss to his chest. "I love you."

"I love you," he answered, his eyes closing. He moaned, feeling her fingertips tracing his muscles, putting him to sleep.

Just as they'd both stilled, began to dream, Olivia's phone rang. Whining, she moved, and then she moaned, smirking. In the thirty minutes of almost-sleep they managed, he'd worked himself under her, inside of her. She moved again, trying to reach her cell, and it woke up the beast beneath her.

He bucked his hips and chuckled, watching her roll her eyes. He thrust again as she grabbed her phone.

"Stop," she scolded, answering the call. She bit her lip as he shook his head, trying to keep her voice steady as she said, "Benson." Her head fell back as he thrust upward again, making her work to stifle moans and keep from grunting. "Yeah, okay," she whispered, hoping she could blame being woken up. It hit her fast, taking her by surprise, and her jaw dropped as she lowered her head to meet his, feeling him jerking, knowing he was cumming, too. She smiled, stunned, and she took a breath before saying, "I'll get him."

He wagged his brows at her as she dropped the phone, and he pulled her to him to kiss her slowly. "Good fucking morning," he whispered.

She swatted at him playfully then pulled herself off of him with a sorry sigh. "We gotta go," she told him.

He sat up and tossed the covers away, stretching as he watched her pull a suit off of a hanger, briefly wondering when she had time to move her stuff into the house. He rolled his eyes, realizing it was probably the same people who managed to move Kathy out of the place and into a new apartment. "Who...uh...I mean…"

"The unit," she told him, working her way into a bra. "But, um, when we get there, I need to run a couple searches...in, uh, files, and...and I need you to…"

"What do you need me to do, boss?" he joked, but then he looked at her intently. "Seriously, I'm in this. Anything you need. Or want." He kissed her forehead.

"I need you to go on a call or two with Cassidy today," she told him, slipping her legs into clean pants. "Talk to him, see if he asks you any…"

"You think it's Cassidy?" he asked, narrow-eyed. He shoved his arms into the sleeves of a green shirt, exhaling. "He's not that slick. What makes you…"

"No, he's just..," she interrupted. "He's first on the list."

He moved toward her and began buttoning her dark blue shirt for her, kissing her slowly. "Let's go," he said, and he swatted her ass as she moved past him. He grinned when she shot him a smoky look over her shoulder, and as he left the room, he took a deep breath.

Whoever was out to try to take them down had no idea who he was dealing with, and Elliot was eager to prove it.

 **A/N: A day at SVU with more gadgets and gizmos, the CCA finally reveals its full name, and...a family moment?**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: A day in the field with Cassidy and Stabler? What could go wrong? And a few more interesting turns.**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. And also, the show would need to be on HBO after 11PM…**

"Yeah," Olivia said into her cell phone, while typing at great speed. Her eyes kept shifting from her computer monitor to Cragen's office door, and back again. "Now. He is? Can you...that's perfect. Yeah. Nice work, Myers." She hung up, moved her cell phone back into her pocket, and continued working on her computer. She narrowed her eyes at the small window in the top left corner, a live video feed of Cragen in his office, on the phone, and the entire call was being captioned. As she watched, and read, she filled out the form for her current SVU case, making sure to stay on top of both of her jobs.

She was almost finished with the last page when two shouting voices interrupted her concentration. Her head popped up, but only for a moment, as she didn't want to miss any of the apparently important conversation Cragen was having with Ed Tucker, about someone else in the unit. "Can the two of you please shut the fuck up?" she snapped, the yelling now louder since the fighting men were in the room.

Cassidy looked at her, tilted his head, and smirked. "Oh, well aren't you sunshine and rainbows, today?"

"Asshole," she hissed, her eyes planted firmly on her computer. She mumbled something else as she started typing again, a new window, a series of codes and long words, a lot of numbers and symbols, nothing that anyone who didn't know what the hell she was doing would understand. "Come on, come on," she whispered, biting her lip, and she felt Elliot behind her now, the heat radiating off of his body and enveloping her. Even in her awful mood and state of agitation, she couldn't help a smile from spreading across her face. "Well?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He's a dick," he whispered back, leaning over to whisper into her ear while pretending to read the case file over her shoulder. "But he's not even remotely close to being smart enough to be our guy. He asked me what FBI stood for."

"Are you serious?" she asked, flummoxed. She chuckled when he gave her an affirmative hum, and then said, "I think we got a person of interest, that out." She kept typing as she nodded toward the video playing in the corner, hoping he would read the transcribed conversation running along the bottom.

"What?" he gasped softly. "No way, I mean...no fucking way."

She shook her head and sighed. "I don't want to believe it, either, but even one of our guys at the Hub said there's been a lot of...interesting activity on her computer. Brody said it was someone in the unit, we just assumed it was one of the detectives." She watched as Cragen hung up the phone, clicked off the feed, minimized her intel window, and sat up a bit straighter. She printed the files, moving toward the machine, and tried to smile as she turned toward Cassidy. "So what were you and Hulk, here, fighting about?"

Cassidy scoffed. "Better question, what weren't we fighting about?" He huffed as he plopped into his chair. "He made these bitchy comments every time I asked him something. Kept interrupting me when I tried to talk to the vic's boss. Called me a bunch of fucking names, and then when I asked him a simple, innocent question about you, he tried to throw me out of the car!"

Her head snapped around to Elliot, and she raised a brow. "What did he ask you?"

"He asked if I knew whether or not you were into S and M," he told her with a clenched jaw. His eyes narrowed and a slow grin grew. "I didn't even answer that one, I just…" he looked over at Cassidy. "And I didn't try to throw you out of the car! The door flew open, I was trying to save your ass!"

"You were trying to unhook my seatbelt!" Cassidy shouted back.

Cragen finally came out of his office, obviously annoyed and not in the mood to put up with any shit. "What the hell is going on out here?" he barked, and then he saw the looks Elliot and Cassidy were giving each other. "Stabler," he sighed, "Why am I not surprised?"

"Hey, no, Cap," Elliot defended, pointing an accusing finger in Cassidy's direction. "It was all him! He doesn't know shit about how to do his job, and I can't fucking hold his hand while I'm trying to do mine! Not to mention…" he glared at Cassidy, tightened his jaw again. "If he asked me one more fucking question about Liv's sex life, I was…"

"What?" The shouted word came from two voices, and Cragen and Olivia looked at each other before sending the same threatening glare toward Cassidy. "Do you have a death wish?" Cragen asked, no trace of amusement on his face. It was a serious question.

Cassidy's eyebrows shot up, and he dropped his jaw before saying, "He threatened me! Are you gonna do something about that?"

"Yeah," Cragen nodded, and then he looked at Elliot, who seemed to be turning red. "I'm gonna give him a commendation in his jacket, because he actually controlled his temper for once." He shook his head and looked back at Cassidy. "Olivia's personal life is none of your business, and I don't even think Elliot knows what the hell is going on with her, considering he just got divorced and has his hands full with his kids. You knew it would push his buttons, you were trying to…" he ran a hand down his face and cleared his throat. "I will deal with this shit later. What have you got on Thompson?"

Elliot took a deep breath. "Parents said they haven't seen her in over a month, since she moved in with her boyfriend." He moved back around to his desk, picked up a small notebook, and flipped a few pages. "Guy named Daniel Northrup. He works at a bank downtown, we almost got him to talk to us, but Gomer Pyle over there scared him into thinking he needed a lawyer!"

"All I said was that he needed to clear things up," Cassidy complained, holding up both of his hands, "That he was first on the list of suspects, and we could…"

"Jesus," Olivia hissed, rolling her eyes. "This is why I should've gone with Stabler." She shook her head, knowing damn well it was her idea to send him out with Cassidy, and that she was the one who hacked into the system and switched assignments around. "El and I will go find this guy, calm him down, actually talk to him, and Cassidy can follow up with Cabot on this," she shoved the now stapled bunch of papers in her hand into an empty file folder, handed it and a pen to Elliot, watched him sign it, and then held it out to Cassidy. "Here," she said, nodding once.

Rolling his eyes, Cassidy pulled it from her hands and flipped it open, not wanting to argue anymore.

"Before you go," Cragen said, "Tucker wants to see you." He let out a single, snorting chuckle. "Don't look at me like that, you're, surprisingly, not in trouble." He jerked his head toward the door, and then he turned to head back into his office.

"Gee," Olivia said with a grin, "Wonder what he wants."

Elliot's eyes narrowed, and he grinned at her. "That's what...you were hacking into Tucker's computer." He saw her smile widen, and he shook his head. He led her out of the squadroom, toward the elevator, and he turned to her as he hit the button on the wall. "For the record," he lowered his voice and his gaze, letting his eyes linger on her chest for a moment too long, and he licked his lips as they rose back up to meet her stare. "Am I the only one that knows the answers to those questions Cassidy was asking?"

She smirked, gave a flick of her head to whip the hair out of her face, and scraped her teeth along her lower lip. "From personal experience, yeah," she nodded as she stepped into the opened doors with a seductive glance over her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure it's in my CCA file somewhere, though. We, uh, have very thorough and accurate personality and IQ tests."

"So, wait," he began, tilting his head and squinting at her. "You actually told some asshole agent about your…"

"No," she laughed, "No, uh, it's all digital. You take the tests on the computer, their filed, stored, and only accessed if it's absolutely necessary. The results are the only thing that get released within the agency. The answers themselves…" she took a breath. "Only come out when a case demands it." She noticed how tense has body had turned, how stiffly he stood beside her. Her head turned, her eyes landed on his darkened glare. "What's the matter?"

He tugged on his pants, rolled his hips to the left, and grunted something unintelligible. "Nothing I can do anything about," he spat. He scratched the back of his neck and said, "I just, uh, got myself a little too worked up, thinking about...you, being a very…" he leaned closer to her, "very good girl."

Her eyes fluttered as a soft moan escaped and she cleared her throat when the doors opened again. "Fucking hell," she ground out, breezing past him, now just as aroused and frustrated as he was. She was leading him, now, through the lobby, out of the doors. "I'm sorry about this morning," she told him, "I really thought Cassidy…"

"It made sense," he shrugged, pulling on his tie to smooth it. He grabbed her hand as they stepped off the curb, protectively moving ahead of her as they crossed the street. "But when he actually had to ask me if we had to write down the vic's statement word for word, I knew there was no way in hell he could be the brains behind an agency infiltration." He scoffed. "He barely has enough brains to behind the counter at Java Joe's."

"Hey, you have to be pretty damn smart to memorize all those drink recipes," she laughed. "Don't insult baristas like that."

He turned to her, stopping them both, and pulled her roughly to him as his lips slammed into hers. His left hand still gripped her right, but his other hand smoothed down her back, cupped her ass, and squeezed it as he bucked his body into hers, rocking his erection against her heat. "Fuck," he almost whined, his eyes squeezed shut. "You're a fucking walking sin, baby."

She panted for a moment as they found their feet and rhythm again. "You're one to talk." She laughed seeing his face contort into a proud expression and his back straighten a bit. She reached the doors to the building first, pushed one open, and told him, "You take your pill this morning?"

He shot her an even more smug look. "That was all me," he winked, and he moved toward the reception desk, holding up his badge. "Detectives Stabler and Benson, here to see…"

"Elliot," a voice called from a but further down the hall. "Olivia. Man, that was fast." Ed Tucker held out his hand, shaking both of theirs. "Come on back." He led them down a long hall, sidestepping cops and internal affairs personnel, until they came to an office with glass walls and a large wooden door. Tucker turned the knob, held it open, and gestured for them to go inside. "Have a seat, please," he said.

Olivia did her best to hide the grin on her face as she sat, and she crossed her legs, leaning back. "What are you trying to jame us up with, now?"

Tucker looked confused. "I told Cragen to make sure you knew this wasn't…"

"We know," Elliot interrupted, "But if it isn't us, personally, then it's the unit. Just let us have it."

"Security breach," Tucker sighed, holding out a file to Olivia. "My computer was hit by some kind of...virus, or malware, or something. By the time we caught it, they already got what they wanted." He looked at them, leaned back, and crossed his arms. "Your files, couple of open cases, and, uh...my jacket." He looked at Elliot, and then at Olivia. "They planted a worm in my computer, one that would, uh, record keystrokes and activate the webcam, with audio, even if...when my computer isn't on." He have them both a smile. "I, of course, forwarded an e-mail along to an attorney, just in case any of this very important and sensitive information got into the wrong hands. The cases involved were his."

Elliot chuckled. "So now that bug is in Langan's computer," he surmised, "And you're in on it?"

Tucker shook his head. "Not the way you think," he said. "I just know what I need to know to keep the two of you gainfully employed by Manhattan SVU." He pointed to the file in Olivia's hands. "He's probably gonna call you, freaking out, and then he's probably gonna beg you to send a tech guy to fix it."

"Oh, we will send the very best," Olivia said with a wink. "Thanks, Ed." She stood and waited for Elliot to rise. "And before you ask...no, he's not."

Elliot turned his lips down and shrugged. "Wasn't gonna ask," he assured, and then he shook Tucker's hand again. He saw something flash in his eyes, something between admiration and defeat, and it only fed his own ego. He chuckled to himself as he followed Olivia out of Tucker's office. "You're gonna send in Brody, aren't you?"

"You lies to me," she said with a grin as she turned to look at him. "You did take that pill today."

He laughed as he shook his head. "Just, uh, getting better at this." He ran a hand through her hair and tugged a bit harder than necessary, watching her eyes flare and her lips press together. "You make me smarter, faster, stronger, and harder than a fucking lead pipe. You. Not some crazy drug."

She leaned into him, kissed him quickly, and said, "I know." She slapped him in the arm and when he let her go she smiled at him. "We've got time to kill," she told him, "Wanna go for a ride?"

Elliot grabbed her hand once they made it through the doors of One-P-P, and he reminded her, "We have to go talk to our vic's boyfriend."

She gave him a small, innocent smile. "We already did." Her smile got wider as she heard his watch beep, and she waited for him to check the alert.

Elliot stared at his watch for a moment, reading the file that had been sent his way. "How the fuck did you…"

"I already told you. Some of our robots," she interrupted, "Are incredibly realistic." She lifted her wrist, tapped the phone button on her watch, dialed a three digit number and pressed the pound key. "He will testify that he spoke to us, and we have the entire conversation so we won't be…"

Her words were cut off by his lips, his hands travelled over her body, sneaking under her jacket, under her shirt, and when the car pulled up to the curb in front of him, and the back door opened, he let out a very dark laugh. "Get in," he said, slapping her ass.

She obeyed and waited, and when he got into the car, the door slammed shut and he pounced on her, getting to work removing her suit. "Your hands are…"

"Cold," he said with a nod, purposely grazing her nipples with his frigid palms as he moved them down her body, and then he grabbed the waistband of her pants. "Up," he commanded.

Her hips rose so he could pull them off of her. "Not what I meant," she moaned, feeling his icy digits sliding through her wet folds. "Wanted to...oh, fuck, Elliot!" Her back arched when two of his fingers thrust into her without warning.

"Where are we going?" He asked her the question as he twisted his fingers and worked them deeper into her. "Tell the car where to go."

"One-eleven, eighty-sixth Avenue," she spoke as clearly as she could, holding in her moans, "Richmond Hill."

His hand stopped moving. "That's the kids…"

"School," she nodded, biting her lip. Her eyes rolled backward as the car started, and his fingers began thrusting again. "Wanted to...take them out for...fuck, El…God, baby."

"Take them out for what?" He swipes his thumb over her clit, making her cry his name again as she came.

Breathing heavily, she lifted her head to look at him. "Lunch," she panted, her eyes glazing over when she saw he was kneeling, stroking himself fast. She knew what the look on his face meant and she knew that he wasn't going easy on her. She wrapped her arms around his neck when he fell forward and her teeth sank into his shoulder when he jerked his hips, impaling her.

"Oh, fuck, yes," he seethed, burying himself deeper, making sure he was in all the way before he started thrusting at a punishing pace. "You drive me fucking crazy. All the fucking time." He kissed her as his body began to move and he chuckled against her lips, thanking God for mid-morning traffic. "God," he growled, feeling her nails drag down his back. "Fucking good girl," he moaned, and he kissed her again, and something inside of him snapped.

She ran her hands along his skin as she felt him slow, moving deeper, with longer stokes. He would pull out completely, then in until their skin slapped together, and their eyes were locked. He'd made this far different from how it started, no longer driven by his lustful dominance. She lightly dragged her nails through his hair again as he smiled down at her and kissed her slowly, the tempo of his tongue matching the rhythm of his thrusts.

As he moved within her, he hoped his kids were hungry, because he was working up quite an appetite himself, and it was for much more than just food. He was bloodthirsty, eager to come to blows with the man who had it in for him, Olivia, and the world he'd only just built up for himself. And he would, whether she wanted him to, or not.

 **A/N: SO...it's Langan! Or...is it?**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: So is Langan trying to get into the CCA? Or is he just helping out a friend? Hmm.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything except the written words. Dick Wolf, please do not sueth me, I ameth merely a fan with a vivid imagination.**

"What happened, Daddy?" Dickie, Elliot's six year old son popped a French fry into his mouth as he looked worriedly across the table at his father.

"Nothing, kiddo," Elliot replied, his eyes squinting in confusion. "Why did you…"

"You never take us out of school for lunch unless something happened," Lizzie, Dickie's twin sister, interrupted. She picked up one of her chicken nuggets and bit it, waiting.

Olivia smiled as she pushed a small cup of honey mustard over to the kindergartener. "We just wanted to spend some time with you guys. You know, see…" the guilt set in, the worry that maybe having a team of specialists alter their lives wasn't the best idea. "How are you guys doing?"

Kathleen, Elliot's nine year old daughter, unboxed her kid's meal and shrugged. "We're okay," she told Olivia, peeling the yellow paper off of her cheeseburger. "Just a little upset. She didn't even say goodbye and Maureen tried to call her but...she didn't answer. She just...left."

Maureen swallowed a mouthful of her chicken sandwich and smiled. "But it's okay, you and Daddy are here, and you're not leaving us." She paled almost immediately. "Are you?"

"No, sweetheart," Olivia answered, brushing her blonde hair back. "I am never leaving you guys. Not...not ever." She shook her head and laughed when Kathleen hugged her from the other side of the table. "You guys know…" she took the time to look into each set of little eyes. "You know I love you, right? So...so much."

"We love you, too," Dickie said, chewing on a nugget.

Though he was laughing, Elliot scolded him. "Don't talk with your mouth full, pal." He scruffed the top of the boy's head and laughed as he jerked away and tried to smooth out his spiked hair.

"I have to go back to school," Dickie explained, "Watch the hair."

Elliot chuckled and shook his head, realizing that his son was more like him than he thought. "Sorry, spud," he said, and sneakily stole a fry off of the tray. He looked over at Olivia as her phone rang and she gave him an apologetic smile as she slid out of the booth to answer the call. His eyes stayed on her as she moved toward the door, then pushed through it.

"Daddy?" Lizzie called, tugging on his jacket to get his attention. When she saw his head turn, she gave him a big smile. "Can Liv sleep over?"

"You want her to? You, uh, you guys really like her, don't you?" He smiled at Lizzie and then looked at his other kids.

They all nodded and laughed as they told him how much they really did love her and wouldn't mind if she spent more time with them. "Mom can't get mad about it anymore," Kathleen noted, finishing her burger.

"No," Elliot said sadly. "She can't, honey." He took a deep breath and leaned over to kiss the top of his son's head. "She's already planning on sleeping over, guys." He laughed hearing their cheers and claps, but he snapped his head around at the sound of Olivia's clearing throat. "Hey," he said to her, unable to conceal the way his eyes lit up when he looked at her.

She smiled back. "Finish up," she said brightly to the kids. "We don't have a lot of time, we gotta get you back to school."

Elliot narrowed his eyes and got up, leaving his kids sitting and shoving remaining fries into their mouths. "What's going on?"

"Langan," she whispered to him. "Check your phone."

He fished his cell out of his pocket, surprised to see a video playing on its own. "Okay, how the hell did you..."

"Just watch," she interrupted, biting her lip.

He stared at the screen and tilted his head as the video split, one side playing what he gathered was a live feed of Langan in his office, on the computer, with a blonde woman sitting across from him. The other side was a mirror of Langan's monitor, the document he was typing appearing letter by letter, line by line. "Son of a…" he swallowed the curse out of consideration for his children.

"Yeah," she scoffed. "She's really throwing us to the wolves." She smirked, then, and whispered, "But she doesn't know that, uh, we are the wolves."

He grinned and looked up at her. "What did you do?"

"Get the kids in the car," she said, grinning, "I gotta make another phone call." She winked at him and kissed each little forehead before heading out, holding her phone to her ear.

Elliot did as she told him, making sure all four kids were buckled up in the backseat. He got behind the wheel, just as he'd done when they picked up the kids, not wanting to explain a self-driving car, or deal with the excitement over it at the same time. He laughed to himself, figuring that, soon, he'd let them go for a ride around the block and let them have the time of their lives.

Olivia, hanging up her call, got into the passenger seat and tapped a few buttons on her watch. "Back to the station as soon as we drop them off," she whispered, "And then I'll tell you what's going on."

He nodded, driving off in the direction of the kids' school. "This was nice," he told her, the warmth in his voice evident. He reached for her hand and smiled when she let him take it. He linked their fingers as he steered with his other hand, sighing. "I don't remember...ever being this happy." He looked at his kids, in the rearview mirror, and he continued, "I don't remember them being this happy, either."

"Hey, my life wasn't all sunshine and rainbows before you, you know," she laughed. "I'm happy, for the first time...ever." Her smile faded a bit. "I'm just sorry I destroyed…"

"No, no, you don't get to do that," he warned, cutting into her words with a new dominance in his voice. "You know, we...we had this conversation a thousand times. You didn't destroy anything, and me and the kids...we're better...with you."

She nodded at him as the car turned, and there was a conversation of shouted 'goodbye's and 'I love you's and 'see you later's as the children ran down the path into their school building just in time for the bell to ring.

"Okay," he sighed, clearing his throat. He leaned back and hit the button, letting the car drive itself back to the One-Six. "Now what's the story with Langan and Cabot?"

"They're sleeping together," she told him, and then she laughed at the flummoxed look on his face. "He came up with this...plan, I guess, to help her make a name for herself in the city. He's been feeding her evidence and files, as long as they weren't his cases. That's how we've been getting…"

"Slam dunks," he finished. "So, what, now we owe the guy?"

"Hardly," she spat, rolling her eyes. "He didn't do it for us. He's a slimeball, he had a motive. In return for helping her become this cutthroat ADA, he wanted dirt, on us. See, he heard from one of his clients that I was involved in some top-secret government agency…"

"Which you are," Elliot cut in, chuckling, "But he shouldn't have believed that. I mean, if I didn't already know, I'd think it was bullshit." He rolled his shoulders as he raised his arms and folded them behind his head, relaxin while he could.

She laughed at him and shook her head. "This is Langan, he's constantly looking for a way to get rid of us. He wants us out of his hair. Well, you. He just wants me...period." She scrolled through a doc on her phone and tapped a few buttons, and then said, "Thanks to the worm Tucker sent him, we know...Alex gave him our jackets, and he's been using her pull with the DA's office to get warrants to search other files, other dockets, and now...he doesn't think it's just me anymore. He thinks it's me and…"

"Me," Elliot stated, nodding once. "Again, he isn't wrong."

"But you were," she said, her eyes narrowing. "Alex isn't the only one helping him. Cassidy isn't as dumb as he wants you to believe." She tossed him her phone, and he read an e-mail from Cassidy to Langan, detailing things he noticed around the squadroom like the new computers, the constant meetings, the stunning rate at which his cases with Olivia seemed to close without either of them breaking a sweat. "That little fucking…" he sat up, then, popping his seat back up and handing her phone to him. "He knows Brody?"

"Apparently," she fumed, shoving her phone back in her pocket.

"How? I mean, I didn't even know the guy until he hacked into my computer!" He screwed up his face. "You don't think he dragged Cassidy into…"

"No, God no," she moaned. "He would need clearance for that. You were easy, you were already in the system, on the roster. Cassidy...would never make the cut, he isn't even a blip on the radar. At least, not as anything but a threat." She leaned forward and tugged open the glove compartment. "Here," she said, handing him a red ball point pen and an expensive looking watch. "Give the pen to Cassidy, make sure he takes it. Put the watch on, now."

He raised an eyebrow.

She smirked at him. "That fantasy you had about being a part of this so you could use all the funky gadgets, live in one of your video games?" She moved closer to him and slowly brushed her lips over his. "Not a fantasy anymore."

He took the bait and kissed her, hard, wrapping his arms around her. Moaning her name, he worked his tongue into her mouth, tangling and dancing with hers, catching her gasps and soft mews on his lips. "What does the pen do?" he asked, trailing kisses from her lips down her neck to her shoulder.

Her eyes closed, her neck curved, her head dropped back. "The stylus...is a microphone. The point...is a transmitter. Anything he writes with it...will be sent to our phones. Jesus, Elliot," she moaned, feeling his teeth sink into her neck. Her hands flew to the back of his head and her nails dug into his scalp.

"Fuck," he hissed, loving the way she scratched and scraped at him, but he pulled away from her and looked into her wide eyes. With a sneaky smile, he moved again, and he kissed her slowly, softly. "Tell me," he whispered, "What the watch does."

"It's like mine," she whispered back, her nose brushing against his, "Camera, computer, ComLink. And...it monitors things like your heart-rate and blood pressure, your oxygen level, your body temperature." She turned her eyes up at him. "You have to wear them, at all times. Promise me."

"Baby, nothing's gonna…" he stopped, seeing the worry and fear flash in her eyes, between the firing love and lust. "Okay. I'll put it on, right now, and I…" he brushed his thumbs under her eyes softly, kissed her again as deeply as he could, and he pressed his forehead to hers. "I'll never take it off."

She nodded and watched as he wrapped the band around his wrist and clasped it, and she hit a button on her own watch, a smile spreading across her face. "There you are," she whispered.

"What?" he asked, giving her a confused smile.

She leaned over and tapped a few buttons on his new timepiece, and she bit her lip as he jumped, feeling the pulsing course through the back of his hand. "Is that...that's not my…"

"It's mine," she told him, giving him a cautionary glare. "Whenever you want to...just push the numbers zero, two, zero, seven." She saw him smile, and then she told him, "Everything comes up on the screen, there. See?"

He looked down at the watch, and he saw her heartbeat's rhythm strip, her pulse rate, her blood pressure, her temperature and oxygen level, and even a small icon displaying her current mood. "A happy face," he chuckled, "With hearts for eyes?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "Because right now, I'm happy, and I feel…"

"Loved," he whispered, and he moved closer to her again, kissing her. "Why? I mean, I'm always with you, you'd know if…"

"It's for the times when you're not," she interrupted, smoothing her hands down his back. "So we never have to wonder, or worry." She kissed the end of his nose. "The Core Cryptanalysis Agency takes care of its own. Especially it's, uh, head bitch." She laughed and kissed him again, and pulled back as the car parked near the curb in front of the station. She grabbed another object out of the glove compartment, closed it, and got out of the car, heading for the doors.

He ran fast, catching up to her, and he asked, "So typing in your birthday, that gives me a full diagnostic on you? Does that mean…"

"I type in yours, yeah," she nodded. "You want your own, you just hit the little heart icon on the main screen." She took a deep breath and tried to refocus, getting back into a professional swing. "Remember, we went to see the boyfriend, and to see the ME, you say nothing about…"

"Olivia!" a familiar voice called, making her turn as she pressed the call button for the elevator. "Good, I'm catching you before you went up…"

"What do you want?" Elliot barked, his eyes narrow.

Olivia hid her smirk behind a disdainful scowl. "I was gonna ask you the same thing?"

Trevor Langan smiled at her, reached out, and took her hand. "Could we...I mean, this may be out of the blue, but would you come to…"

She pulled her hand out of his. "No, we couldn't, I wouldn't." She tilted her head. "Aren't you involved with someone, anyway?"

Langan laughed. "It isn't serious. I'm a single man, I date around. I thought maybe you'd like to accompany me to…"

"The only place I will ever go with you," she started, walking into the elevator, "Is to court, for a trial, where I will watch you choke on your own shoddy defense." She felt Elliot fuming next to her, and she imagined that if she typed his birthday into her watch, her hand would tremble because his pulse would be racing.

Langan sighed. "Well, I tried," he said. "One of these days, Benson, you'll realize that I'm not the scumbag you think I am. I am...worthy of a place in your...life." He looked into her eyes. "I'll prove it to you, somehow."

Olivia let her head drop to one side, taking in his words, and when the elevator doors opened, she shook her head. "Like I said," she told him. "The only place you have in my life, is in the courtroom, Counselor." She walked away, followed by Elliot, and Langan lagged behind both of them.

"There they are," Cragen shouted, gesturing toward them. "Tell me…" he ran over to them, "You got something we can use."

Olivia looked around, confused, but said, "Northrup, after he calmed the fuck down, told us that he dropped her off at work at seven, went to work himself, never even took a bathroom break. Got camera footage and eight people who verified. He had nothing to do with it, so…"

"So we're stuck," Cassidy huffed.

"No, you and Stabler take a ride out to the boutique where your vic worked," Cragen barked. "I would send him with his actual partner, but she's got someone here she needs to talk to."

"I do?" Olivia questioned, squinting.

Cragen moved, letting the man behind him step forward. Smirking, he said, "You do."

"I wouldn't have come down here if this wasn't important," Eli Mundo looked at her with pleading eyes. He took a few steps closer to her, blinked, and whispered, "Decker told me you offered to test his CereBooster. The...those pills. I need you to tell me, you didn't…"

"Elliot and I, yeah, but, uh, we only took them once, yesterday. Why?" she asked, worried now.

Mundo pulled her to the back of the room, over to the coffee table, and nodded at Elliot as he and Cassidy left to do their jobs. He licked his lips and looked back at her. "They work, don't get me wrong, but he...he made a slight alteration to the formula before he gave them to you. Gravelin told him to, and he would've done anything for her. She knew that, and she used that." He scratched the side of his head. "She, uh, she's been...terminated, by the way, all of her records and files have been deleted, our Anamnesis team did its job, it's like she never existed, with exceptions of course."

"Oh, yeah, uh, good," she nodded. "But the pills? What kind of alteration? Are we in any kind of danger here or…"

"You only took one, you said?" Mundo asked, and when he saw her nod, he let out a relieved sigh. "God, good, okay. You need to send them back to the lab, the techs will take care of everything."

Olivia blinked. "What, um, what would have happened if…"

"He added an extremely potent fertility drug," Mundo told her. "More than one dose would have…"

"He was trying to…" she interrupted, shaking her head. "Why would he want me to have a…"

Mundo held up a hand, stopping her. "Gravelin, remember, not Decker," he corrected. "She wanted you benched. She knew you couldn't do any field work if you were pregnant, she didn't know you were onto her already, and we...took care of her the same day Decker gave you the pills." He slapped a flash drive into her hand. "She was working for a few other people, too. Took a lot of bribes, and was planning on...well, it's...it's all there." He leaned closer to her and whispered in her ear. "By the way, I had to tell your captain I was your boyfriend, so I'm gonna kiss you. Don't punch me."

She chuckled, but nodded, and she let Mundo give her a small peck on the lips, and then he walked away, nodding respectfully at Cragen. She bit her lip as she moved to her desk, inserted the flash drive, and took her phone out of her pocket. She swiped to unlock it and watched as Cassidy's messy handwriting scrawled across a blank white screen. In between case notes, he wrote observations and questions, and then he wrote down a few insults directed at Elliot. He scribbled something about knowing Elliot wasn't working alone, and then wrote few names of other people he thought were involved, along with reasons.

One name, written over twice and underlined, made her gasp, and she looked from her phone to the man in the middle of the room, engaged in conversation with Langan, who looked slightly nauseated, and Munch. He was never even on her list of people to consider, but he was now.

 **A/N: Who? A conversation with Alex that reveals a little too much, and a phone call with someone from a different agency. And a new ME? But who?**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: A conversation with Alex that reveals a little too much, and a phone call with someone from a different agency. And a new ME? But who?**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything except the written words. Dick Wolf, please do not sueth me, I ameth merely a fan with a vivid imagination.**

Olivia sat at her desk, frantically typing, her eyes darting from her computer to Cragen's office door and back again. "This is fucking…" she sputtered, shaking her head. "He's actually trying to hack into my hard drive," she chuckled. "Sorry ass motherfucker doesn't know what he's up against."

"You sure?" Elliot asked, looking over his shoulder toward Cragen's office.

"I'm literally watching him do it," she said, nodding at her monitor where a video feed of Cragen working at his desk, on his computer, and a screen-mirroring program were running side-by-side. "He's gonna curse very loudly in three...two…"

"What the fucking hell?" Cragen barked loud enough to be heard through his door, his bellow carrying out into the squadroom.

Elliot's eyes shot to her. "What did you do?" he asked, smirking wickedly at her. He saw the gleam in her eyes, the crooked grin on her face that only existed when she was getting exactly what she wanted. It made his cock hard and his heart pound.

She let out a soft laugh. "Got him in a pop-up loop," she said, "Every time he clicks one closed, two more open, and, uh, let's just say we could go in there and arrest him on possession of excessive pornography." She narrowed her eyes and typed faster. "Now, let's see what he's hiding, huh?"

"Where's Cassidy?" Elliot asked, as if just realizing the man wasn't in the room. "I asked him to run down to the lab and get the tox results from the new doc, he shoulda been back by now."

"Maybe he's trying to stay the hell away from you," she quipped, still filtering through Cragen's computer files from the comfort and safety or her own desk. "You fucking punched him."

"He deserved it," Elliot laughed. "Even Cragen thought so, he told me…"

"Cragen thinks you're some clandestine CIA operative," she interrupted, "He's afraid to write you up." She moved her mouse, clicked and dragged a few things, earning another loud curse from Cragen, heard again beyond his office. "What did he do, anyway?"

Elliot huffed, rubbed his forehead, and told her, "He, uh, he asked me if you were seeing anyone, again, and then he said...he heard from someone that you, uh, were a bit on the submissive side, told me he'd make you…" he stopped speaking, balled his fists tightly, and took a long, deep breath.

She popped her head up and looked over at him. "Hey, look at me." She watched his eyelids slide upward, his baby-blues staring back at her, and she smiled. "Never gonna happen, okay? Not with that fucking douchebag," she scoffed. "Besides, the only person I trust, in any capacity, is you. Anyone else ever tries to boss me around, I'll kill him."

"Well, no one is ever gonna have the chance, right?" he asked, a smug grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I'm the only one you're ever gonna…"

"Bingo!" she yelped, a beeping and blinking box on her screen getting her attention. "Son of a bitch was rifling through every federal case we've worked for the last year," she told him, clicking some files open, "He created a spreadsheet, every contact, every field agent, and every person of interest...fuck, he even has Porter and Eckerson highlighted because…"

"He thinks you were sleeping with them," Elliot finished for her.

"Well, I slept with Andy, it was before...I wasn't even…" she shook her head and continued saving files to her own drive, and then manually corrupted the ones on Cragen's computer. "He's not trying to get in on it, he just wants us out. Trying to protect the unit, keep it tight. Whatever, we just have to convince him...we aren't working for anyone else."

Elliot smirked as he watched her close out all of the windows and lean back in her chair. "We aren't," he shrugged. "People work for us," he said with a wink, and he opened his mouth to say something else, but Cassidy's voice sounded first.

"Doctor Warner," Cassidy said with an air of annoyance. "Real peach, that one." He slapped the report down in front of Elliot, shot Olivia a hungry look, and dropped into his seat. "Vic had high levels of something called clomiphene in her system. That some kind of new party drug?" He twirled a pen around in his hand as he kicked his feet up on his chair.

Olivia stared at him, baffled. "It's a fertility drug," she said, and then her eyes widened and she looked at Elliot. "Like what Decker put in the…"

"I'll call Mundo," he said, reaching for his phone, ignoring Cassidy's confused expression.

Olivia noticed, though, and said, "Someone he knows in pharmaceuticals." She tried to smile at him. "So, uh, what else did the new ME tell you?"

"To get a life," Munch joked, stepping into the room. "I was down there getting a work-up on a Jane Doe, when I hear this one," he jutted a thumb at Cassidy, "Hitting on her, quite badly, I might add."

Cassidy held up a hand. "I was just being friendly," he defended, grinning. "Besides, uh, my only other prospect…" he eyed Olivia again, "Seems to be out of the game. At least until the guy fucks up."

Munch turned his head and folded his arms. "Oh, really, Miss Benson? Who's the lucky bastard?"

"You don't know him, John," Olivia smiled at the man, knowing that Cassidy had heard Langan mention her boyfriend, told him about the kiss. She had, of course, told Elliot to avoid his jealous rage, and it gave them a plausible scapegoat to throw any suspicion away from their actual relationship. "None of you do. Well, except…"

"Me," Elliot spat harshly, hating even pretending that she was with someone else. He hung up the phone and said, "Mundo ran a search, it's the same drug, from the same shipment. He said the lab ordered a case of it from a distribution center uptown, they sent out the whole lot, but on delivery it shorted them two bottles. Guy couldn't explain where they went, but promised to send two new bottles out as soon as possible. He's running a search on batch numbers, we figure if they were sending it to us, the driver could have easily dropped off a bottle or two somewhere else, local, or maybe even taken them with him."

She beamed at him proudly, impressed, and thought of the many ways she could reward him when they got home. She felt a dull ache between her legs, anticipating, and she crossed her ankles to relieve her tension. "I need to tell…"

"Excuse me," Alex Cabot, Assistant District Attorney, walked into the room, her heels clicking against the tiles. She strode over to Olivia's desk and crossed her arms. "I scheduled an arraignment, showed up to the hearing, and your…"

"Brickers?" Olivia raised an eyebrow and tried not to smile. "Someone should have called you, it was kicked up to the feds."

"Wish someone would tell us why the fuck that keeps happening," Elliot said for the sake of keeping secrets, seeing Cragen's reflection in his blank computer screen.

"I was trying to figure that the hell out," Cragen fumed, "You don't know?" He watched Elliot shake his head. "Call someone down here from TARU. My computer has whatever virus crashed yours." He locked his lips and tilted his head. "Neither of you have been handing off cases to…"

"I wouldn't work with those assholes willingly," Elliot spoke, "And I think Liv would rather get a tattoo of my name on her ass than go anywhere near Dean Porter again."

Olivia rolled her eyes and looked at Cragen. "Last time he was here, Cassidy got chummy with him, so maybe he's been tipping him off, huh?"

Cassidy balked and sputtered at her. "Wh...what? Me? No fucking way! Stabler is the fucking liaison, so even if I thought a case should be handed over, I wouldn't be allowed to fucking…"

"Whatever," Cragen snapped, holding up a hand. "It's not...the FBI calls us when we pinch their guys, this was...someone else." He shot Olivia and Elliot each a confused look, and the slowly turned his head an narrowed his eyes at Cassidy. "Looking in the wrong fucking place," he mumbled, and then headed into his office again, muttering something under his breath.

Alex cleared her throat and dropped her arms to her sides. "So, since I'm now free for the rest of the night, I...I need to talk to you."

"Do you?" Olivia said with an air of arrogant petulance. "Wouldn't have anything to do with you selling me and Elliot out to Langan, would it?"

Alex's eyes widened. "What? Olivia, I would never…"

"What did you need to talk to me about, then?" Olivia asked, cutting her off, "Because we have nothing else to…"

"Olivia," Alex breathed softly, "I need...to talk to you." She tried to convey her need with her eyes, her fingers twisting nervously around the hem of her suit jacket. "Alone."

Giving in, Olivia nodded, and she rose to her feet, licking her lips. She led Alex through a doorway and into a narrow hallway, then into a small interview room. She closed the door behind them and gestures for Alex to have a seat. "What's the matter?" she asked, choosing to stand, leaning up against the glass panel on the wall.

"First of all, I don't know who you were talking to, but I never gave Langan any ammo to use against you or your partner," Alex said. "We did each other a couple of favors, I may have let it slip that the two of you have a pretty impeccable record and if he ever wanted to get a leg up…"

"Yeah," Olivia scoffed. "That's not giving him ammo," she bit back, trying not to let on she knew exactly what Alex had told Trevor. "And why the hell did you tell Cassidy about my sex-life? Seriously, he told Elliot he has these fantasies now…"

"I didn't tell him anything!" Alex barked. "How the hell would I even know about that?"

"You're the only one who could say something about it and have Cassidy fucking buy it," Olivia hissed at her. "Listen, forget it, what do you need to…"

"You hung me up," Alex accused, snapping into Olivia's words. "You went to McCoy, why? What the hell could you have...I mean, you are aware that the dirt Langan gave me was used to help you nail…"

"What are you talking about?" Olivia's brow was furrowed, her arms still folded across her chest. "Why the fuck would I go to McCoy about anything? He'd make us re-work every single fucking case!"

Alex blinked rapidly and shook her head. "Sorry, what? You never told McCoy that I was getting privileged information from the defense...that I was sleeping with…" she saw Olivia shaking her head slowly in wide-eyed denial. "No? It...it wasn't…"

"Maybe your little boyfriend realized he put his balls in a vice and you weren't giving him enough in return," Olivia said with a shrug. "He was getting himself out of trouble. Not all of your problems are my fault."

Alex sighed and looked down. "What the hell happened with us?" She bit her lip. "You kicked me out of your world outside this job a long time ago, I don't know shit about your life, I had to find out from Langan that you're dating some hunk from Cyber Crimes." She let out another low breath. "I'm so out of the loop, I thought you were still pining for your partner." She laughed a bit. "Figures, he gets divorced just when you find someone who can put up with you." Her eyes closed again. "What did I do, Benson?"

Olivia didn't even smile. "You know what you did."

Alex huffed. "You can't still be holding that against me! You weren't even dating that guy! You were fucking in love with Elliot!"

"You...you think this is about you fucking Porter?" Olivia laughed hard and smoothed out the wrinkles in her red shirt. "Man, I thought you were an Ivy Leaguer." She calmed and looked Alex right in the eyes. "You offered a rapist a deal, pled him down to sexual misconduct, a fucking misdemeanor, to convince him to testify against a fucking doctor...for fraud!" She ran both hands through her hair, shaking her head. "I don't understand...that goes against everything you...that I thought you believed in! That you were fighting for!"

"I fight for the conviction!" Alex yelled. "I fight for it, and I get it!"

"At what cost?" Olivia shouted back. "Fuck, Alex, a sixteen year old girl killed herself because you thought her attacker's shoddy testimony was worth more than her…"

"What?" Alex's voice was soft, her face had fallen and she'd gone white. Her shoulders slumped and she sunk low in the chair.

Olivia nodded with her lip between her teeth. "She left a note, said she'd never feel safe again and would not live the rest of her life looking over her shoulder and sleeping with the lights on, so she downed a bottle of sleeping pills." A tear rolled silently down her cheek and she flicked it away without much thought. "That's why you don't know shit about me anymore," she hissed, "Because I don't know fucking anything about you." She turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her, leaving Alex to stew in realization and regret.

Elliot stopped her from heading out into the squadroom, though, cutting off her path at the end of the hall. "No," he said firmly. "In here," he jerked his head to the left as he shoved a key into the lock of the door beside him. He pushed it open and waited for Olivia to move.

Curious, she walked into the windowless room, her breath hitching when she heard a click, telling her that Elliot had relocked the door. "What are you…"

"You've done enough talking," he interrupted, pulling the knot of his tie loose and slipping the silk off of his neck. He threw it over the long metal table. "Yelling, really. I think the entire unit heard you."

She turned around to look at him, surprised to see him unbuttoning his shirt. "El, what are you…" she tried again, but once more, he stopped her.

"I told you," he said darkly, pulling his shirt off fully and letting it drop, "To stop talking." He moved closer to her, grinning, and let his fingers pull at the small buttons on her shirt, tugging open the red cotton. "Not like they'll hear you from here, anyways. This room is…"

"Soundproof," she whispered, suddenly realizing what he was about to set into motion. She looked into his smoky stare as he peeled the shirt away from her skin and tossed it on top of his. Her heart began to pound, her breath stalling.

He kept his eyes on hers as his hands slid down to her pants. He unhooked the single clasp, shoved his fingers between the material and her skin, and shoved them over her hips. "Kick 'em," he commanded, and then watched as she swung her feet and let her pants sail across the floor. He let out a low laugh, dragging his fingers along the lace waistband of her briefs, as he tugged, the laugh became a moan. "So fucking sexy," he mumbled, licking his lips.

"We're at…" she saw him shake his head at her, his eyes firm, demanding. She closed her mouth and realized something must have set him off, gotten under his skin, to the point of near madness if he couldn't wait until he got home to take her.

"Told Cragen we were taking a break," he informed her, as if it made their current situation okay, as if it excused them. Maybe it did. He yanked a bit harder on the soft, pink lace, gazing down at it, amazed at the way it looked so beautiful in contrast to her tan skin. With a throaty growl, he ushered the flimsy fabric down her hips, smoothing his palms along her thighs, and then let them drop like a feather to the floor. He skimmed his hands back up, resting them on the curve of her ass, and he gave a gentle command. "Turn around," he ordered, and his thick fingers gripped her skin and helped her along, until she was facing the table. "Bend…" he droned as he leaned against her body, pressing his bare chest into her back, "Over."

She gasped softly as he eased her down, a palm on her back, and she gave a whispered yelp when he snapped the back of her bra, hard. "Jesus," she seethed, taking in the feel of his rough palms sailing around her chest. She stifled a moan when he folded his hands around her breasts and squeezed, his lips dropping kisses to her spine. She shivered at his touch and moaned as quietly as she could, the back of her mind registering the sound of his belt unbuckling.

He squeezed and palmed her breasts with one hand, alternating between them, as his other hand worked his slacks down and off, and he kicked them toward the pile of clothes that had grown by the door. He slid his right hand from her chest to her back and unhooked her bra with a flick of his fingers, a smug grin on his face as his speed shocked another gasp out of his lover. His left hand was wrapped around his thick cock, stroking roughly, tightly. "Spread for me," he told her, wedging his knee between her legs and nudging. "Wider, baby," he instructed. He placed his right hand, palm down, on her ass, caressed it slowly and lightly, and trailed his fingertips up the length of her spine. He heard her moan again and he knew that he was doing exactly as intended, making her wet and ready for him.

Her hands pressed down into the cold metal, keeping her upper body above the surface, her eyes shut in blissful anticipation. She moaned his name, a bare whisper, when she felt his hand tangle in her hair. She dropped her head low and moaned again, his fingers scratching lightly at her scalp, massaging it. "God, El…"

"No," he stopped her, "Not yet. You'll know when you're allowed to talk." He twisted his wrist, looping strands of hair around his fingers, fisting it. "But right now…" he moved his body behind hers, swiped the fingers of his left hand up her dripping slit, letting a shaky moan escape at the feel of how slick and hot she was. He chuckled again, it sounded murderous, and he shifted his weight again, pressing just the tip of his dick into her. He clenched his jaw as he inched forward only slightly, and he said, through gritted teeth, "Scream." He tugged her hair hard, pulling her head up and back as he thrust forward, sinking into her all the way and making his skin kiss hers.

She obeyed, as if she had a choice not to, and let a loud cry of his name loose into the room. It echoed off of the steel walls, reverberating around the table. "Oh, my God, Elliot," she whimpered, her body rocking as he thrust at an almost punishing pace.

He pulled her hair again, earning an aroused and excited moan from her. "You fucking love this, don't you?" he asked, his jaw still clamped as he used every muscle in his body to give her everything he had. He slammed into her roughly, the sounds of their slapping skin filling the air around them. "Fucking answer me."

"Yes, God, yes," she cried, feeling him give her hair unother tug, and she smiled, knowing he was loving this as much as she was, if not more.

"You love me, too, right?" he asked, panting, hitting into her faster. He bent over, letting his torso rest on her back as he pounded and thrust. He swiped her hair to the side and kissed her neck,and then poked his tongue out and licked a long, slow trail from her nape to a spot just behind her ear, and he sucked her lobe into his mouth with a growl. He nipped it with his teeth, pulled, sucked it again, and when he let it go he breathed, right into her ear, "Tell me how much you love me."

She let her head fall back against him, the drugged smile on her face evidence of how nothing of this was causing uncomfortable pain. "I love you so fucking much, Elliot," she whispered to him, panting, moving against him. "I love you."

"Yeah," he laughed hotly, "You fucking do, don't you?" His arrogance was peaking, he moved his hands down to her hips and gripped them as he straightened up, grabbing her body and pulling it toward him with every powerful swing of his hips. It drove him deeper into her, the feeling of every inch being enveloped by her made him roll his eyes and growl out her name. "Oh, fuck, baby," he spat, his body begin to glisten as he kicked it into overdrive, "You'd better not be holding back on me."

She shook her head and turned to look over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow, her damp hair falling into her eyes. She was teasing him, making him crazy, and she knew it.

He grinned back at her smugly, and trailed one hand down her thigh, between her legs, until his fingers found her swollen, sensitive, clit. He chuckled again as he pressed the pads of his fingers to it and began to circle and play. He laughed louder, harder, watching her jaw drop and eyes roll, the delicious noise that came out of her throat making him almost blow too soon. "Fuck, baby," he breathed, "Fucking cum."

She shot him another smokey look, one that dared him, seemed to say _make me_. She bit her lip as she let a few muffled cries fly, keeping her head turned to him, her eyes on his.

"Not...fucking...fair…" he grunted, punctuating each word with hard slams. He moved his fingers faster agaisnt her clit, shocked gasps escaping as the burn built and his muscles seized. He felt hot wetness trickling down his thighs and he watched her eyes flutter closed, her head drop again, and he groaned and rolled his eyes at the feeling of her tightening intensely around him. "Fuck, baby, come on, cum for me. Damn it, fucking cum, I want to feel you, I want to watch you, hear you scream for me."

"El," she whimpered, her body quaking, "Oh, my God, Elliot." Her arms were giving out, her hands shaking in attempt to hold her up, and she felt him still pumping as she clamped around him, sucking him in deeper with each thrust. "Baby, oh, God," she panted, and her eyes shut tight, her head popped up, her back arched, and her body flew back and up into his as she screamed, the way he wanted. One arm flew backward to loop around his neck as her body shook and jerked against his, the other hand found his, still working against her clit, and she let her fingers join his in a hurried attempt to bring her to another quick release to trigger his.

"Fuck," he hissed, and his thrusts slowed but remained hard, her tight walls making movement hard, until her felt her clamp down so hard, he couldn't move anymore at all. The pulsing of her walls milked him and he held her around him, against him, as he grunted muffled curses into her neck and let her screams and cries burn themselves into his memory.

Quiet fell suddenly, their damp, sticky, hot bodies wound together as they stood on weak, trembling, legs. Labored breathing made his chest rub against her back, her shoulders slip against his chest, and their arms lay limpy on each other's slick skin. Without warning, laughter filled the room, and the pair turned to each other and fell together, embracing, kissing, relishing in the sheer happiness they gave each other.

"What...the hell…" she breathed, looking into his eyes as she brushed her nose against his.

He shrugged, breathing hard. "I had to fucking call fucking Porter," he stewed, "And then I heard you...yelling like hell at Alex…" he offered another one-shouldered shrug. "I figured we both needed...this."

She kissed him softly, slowly, and whispered, "What did he say to you?"

He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip, let his arms fall away from her, and pushed himself back, shaking his head. He began to pick up their clothes, tossing hers over to her as he said, "He's got something he needs us to help him with, says it's something we can handle together…" he blinked, pulling his pants up over his still-slick skin. He zipped them up with a soft grimace, his dick still sensitive and already hardening again, owing it to the wonton look in Olivia's eyes as she dressed before him. "Us, you and me, not the unit."

She gave him a questioning glance as she buttoned her red shirt, and moved closer to him. "What are you...it's not something he needs SVU on?"

Elliot slowly shook his head and held out his tie to her, winking when she took it and started looping it around his neck and under his collar. "Us. The agency. Baby, he fucking knows."

 **A/N: Who told Porter? Is it going to cause trouble? Who told McCoy about Alex? And what is up with Langan? Is Cragen a good witch or a bad witch? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: A dodged bullet may not have hit its intended target but it does ricochet and strike an unintended mark.**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. And also, the show would need to be on HBO after 11PM…**

"Hold on," Elliot spoke, slumped in a leather chair. One hand rested limply on his knee and the other squeezed the bridge of his nose, attempting to stave off a headache. He sighed heavily, the few minutes of conversation with FBI Agent Porter replaying through his head. "What did you just ask us?"

Porter looked at him with the same disdain as usual, but with a begrudging admiration as well. "I asked," he huffed, swiveling in his rolling chair behind his desk, "If you had access to any intel that might have an impact on an internal investigation involving your Captain."

Olivia's eyes narrowed, her lips curling. As she brushed her hair behind her ears, she looked around the room, one of the many like it in the FBI's New York Field Office, and she momentarily wished she'd have forked over the plans for the IAN when the director had asked, she could use a cold drink right now. "Porter, who do you think we are?"

Elliot shot her a look. One brow rose, and he discretely tapped a few buttons on his watch. Instantly, he felt her pulse, calm and steady, and an animated icon laughing until it cried rolled around in the corner of the screen. Her face, though, had remained poker-steady. "What's so funny?" he whispered to her.

"Seriously," she began, ignoring Elliot, eyeing Porter more suspiciously and sitting up a bit straighter. "Why would Elliot and I have any…"

"Come on, Benson," Porter whined as he rolled his eyes. "I need to read you in on this, but I can't unless you and your agency fork over everything you have on…"

"Agency?" Olivia questioned, tilting her head. She realized now that Dean Porter had made the assumption she and Elliot weren't just SVU detectives, but he had come to the very wrong conclusion about what else they were. Playing dumb would be a way out, or a way in, or both.

Porter squinted. "I need to say it?" He licked his lips and folded his hands, leaned forward, and shot Elliot a harsh glare before looking at Olivia. "Someone hacked into my computer this morning," he eyed her and let his lips curl into a smirk. "My personal, not work, now...I have an idea what they were looking for." He unclasped his hands. "You could've just asked. I'm still single, ready for…"

"I'm seeing someone," she spat, interrupting him as she rolled her eyes. "Get to the point."

More irritated now, Porter hissed, "Seeing...? We're coming back to that, later, but I know...I know it was you, and I know you work for the CIA."

The laugh that erupted from Olivia's mouth was boisterous and infectious, spurring a similar chuckle from Elliot. "We...us? Me and her? The CIA?" Elliot shook his head as he tugged on his tie and moved around in his chair, feeling the buzz of his phone. He dug it out, unlocked it, and then elbowed Olivia to get her attention and showed her what had appeared on the screen. "Listen," he looked up at Porter while Olivia watched the text appearing on the face of Elliot's phone. "We are not in the CIA. That's ridiculous."

Porter's brow furrowed, his eyes jerked from Olivia to Elliot and back again. "But the only way you could've gotten into…"

"Wasn't me," Olivia shrugged. "Why were you so sure it was?" She glanced at Elliot and gave his wrist a gentle push, telling him she'd read enough, and they'd deal with Cassidy later. "When Elliot called to ask you who kept sending our cases to…"

"I thought it was you…" Porter interrupted, "Because whoever it was accessed photos, emails, contacts, only ones that pertain to my...personal life."

Olivia chuckled and looked down at her own watch, checking the time and Elliot's heart rate. She smirked at his quick pulse, caused by mild lingering jealousy. "I'm not interested in any part of your personal life." She popped her head up to look at Porter. "So you pulled us out of our station, off a case that needed our attention, because someone stole pictures of you at your prom?"

"Your case was closed," Porter reminded her, still confused. He was sure Olivia had been behind the hack, and he was sure of her reasons. At least, he thought he was. "And they weren't...prom pictures. But, point is, when I found out...or assumed, rather, that you were more than just a couple of cops, I got the green light to read you in on a case...one that involves your unit. But now that, uh, I know you're not…"

"We could still help," Elliot offered. "Just because we aren't CIA agents doesn't mean we're any less interested in what you have on the unit." He scratched the side of his chin, smirking. He had an idea, but getting another agency in on the action would make his job easier. "What intel are you looking for on...you said our captain, you mean Cragen?"

Porter nodded. "This is above your clearance level."

"That's impossible," Olivia laughed, arrogantly pointing at the phone. "Three, two…"

When she would've said "one," the phone rang. Porter went wide-eyes as he answered the call, staring perplexedly at Olivia as he spoke to his supervisor.

Elliot leaned over, taking advantage of Porter's distraction, and said, "So we were wrong, Cassidy isn't…"

"No, seems he's just a dick, not a criminal," she whispered back. "Still have to ask him why he's spilling department secrets to Langan, though. Just because he's doing it for the right reasons, doesn't make it…"

"How the hell did you…" Porter snapped after hanging up, rubbing his head. "Okay, I was just told to read you two in on this anyway. There's a leak in your unit, someone turning over evidence and witnesses to an agency that is probably the highest level of…" he shook his head and cleared his throat. "Your Captain is aware, and he also knows that someone else is doing the same thing, but in the opposite direction. I need to know if he's covering it up, helping it happen, or trying to stop it."

Elliot blinked. "Opposite direction," he repeated. "What does that even mean?"

"It means," Porter said, tossing each of them a file, "That while one of your pals is trying to make sure the pricks you put away get the most brutal punishment possible, someone else is trying to set them free and feed your victims to the wolves."

Olivia thumbed through the file, rolling her neck and shoulders and feeling, for the first time since they left the station, the sting of her scratched skin rubbing against her shirt. She smirked at Elliot, recalling how his nails dug at her skin just the way hers clawed at his, a brief mental escape from the precarious situation she found herself in now. "Where did you get this?" She held up the folder and looked up at Porter.

Porter licked his lips. "A friend," he said. "None of the cases you worked...and this hurts me to say, to you especially, Stabler...the ones that slipped through your fingers, the losses, the ones where the victim recanted or the perp was acquitted…" he ran hand down his face. "You had the right guy, every time, and someone else…"

"Blew it?" Elliot flicked the pages, redacted emails, transcribed phone calls, and evidence logs that had been falsified or tampered with, all wrapped up in a neat package. "Christ, the Andrews case, man I beat myself up over that for months!"

Porter nodded. "You both did," he gestured to Olivia. "I need to know if the two of you know who could possibly…"

"It's not us," Olivia cut him off, "And it's not Cassidy, we aren't sure if it's Cragen...that's why you need us?"

Porter nodded. "When Elliot called me, and he asked who kicked the Palestone case up to us, I thought he was just asking if I knew it was you, if it was too late to cover for you."

"Really?" Elliot chuckled. "No, uh, it was an honest question."

"I know that now," Porter intoned, rolling his eyes, and he tried to smile. "Now that you're here, though, we can use each other's resources to get the answer to the question. I'm expecting you to fill me in on whatever you find out." He turned his head. "Now that that's settled," he pointed to Olivia. "You're seeing someone? Who?"

Olivia licked her lips and shifted in her seat, moaning just slightly. She'd never put her pink, lace underwear back on after their romp back at the station. "Does Alex know you still have a fucking…"

"What does she have to do with…" Porter cut her off again, confused, and then he sucked in a sharp breath, realizing. "You know about that?"

Chuckling, Olivia shrugged. "I know about a lot of things. Ask me why I didn't give a rat's ass that you fucked our ADA, after I turned you down."

Porter eyed her. "I thought you were just...playing hard to get." He crossed his arms, his expensive suit wrinkling. He heard Elliot scoff and shot a glance at him. His brows knitted, then, as he noticed that Elliot's suit was not only more expensive but so well made it didn't seem to wrinkle at all. "Is that Armani, Stabler?"

"Kiton," Elliot corrected, taking pleasure in the way Porter's eyes bulged a bit. "She doesn't play games, Porter. She was already involved with…"

"Who?" Porter spat more harshly. He watched as Olivia shook her head and stood up. "Where are you going?"

"We were briefed on this," she held up her file and waved it around a bit as she ran her other hand down her shirt. "We will, uh, let you know what we find out." She slapped Elliot in the arm to get him moving.

He looked up at her and nodded fast, rising to his feet and following her out of Porter's office. They heard him mumbling something under his breath, but ignored him as they headed down the hall and out into the lobby of the federal building. Olivia felt Elliot's eyes burning her skin, and as she tapped a few buttons on her watch, and then said, "Heading out." She turned to look over her shoulder as they walked through the front doors. "What are you staring at?"

"The most perfect ass in mortal history," he answered, licking his lips. "Belonging to the most beautiful, intelligent woman in the universe." He reached out and grabbed her arm, pulled her toward him, and kissed her hard.

She moaned as she sank into him, only pushing him away when the driverless car pulled up to the curb beside them and swung open the back door. She looked around, and then back at him. "Get in," she said.

He grinned. "Pulling rank," he licked his lips. "Fucking hot." He slapped her ass before climbing into the car, and when she got in, he pulled her toward him. He spouted his home address, as the car jerked as it began to move, shoving them closer.

She chuckled and dropped her head to his chest. "I didn't know anything about anyone hacking into his computer." She tugged playfully on his tie.

"No, uh, that...that was my call," he kissed her forehead. "I asked Brody for a favor, figured he owed us after keeping the fact he knew Cassidy from us." He brushed her hair back and kissed the crown of her head. "And now that...uh...we…"

She stopped him. "You told Brody to only go after his personal…"

"No, baby," he interrupted and kissed her softly again. "I told him to make it obvious that someone messed with his personal computer. It completely fucking distracted him from the fact that someone was in his system…"

She had silenced him with a deeper kiss. Her hands ran down his chest, along the thousands of dollars of silk and cotton, until she sank them between his legs.

Elliot moaned, grinning against her lips, and mumbled something to her.

She pulled away and smiled, cupping one hand over his growing bulge, bringing the other to his face. "I love you, too," she said to him, and she laughed. "You bring out the…"

She didn't get to finish her sentence. Something had rammed the back of the car, causing it to spin out and screech into the wall of a nearby building. Clutching each other and checking for any sign of injury, they pawed and patted in silent shock.

He was the first to move, getting out of the car and looking around for what, or who, had crashed into them. "Nothing," he exhaled, turning his head in all directions but grabbing hold of Olivia once he felt her beside him. He looked at her. "You sure you're…"

"I'm fine," she nodded, kissing him again. "But, El," she let out a heavy breath. "What the fuck just happened?"

 **A/N: Hmm?! Was the agency watching? How does Brody know Cassidy? And a meeting with Langan! Next.**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: A Meeting with Langan that answers a few questions, and a moment of truth.**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. And also, the show would need to be on HBO after 11PM…**

After running the car's security and surveillance video, Elliot's temper was turned up to eleven and Olivia's fury was boiling under her calm demeanor. They rerouted, heading for the station again instead of Elliot's place. As soon as they turned into the squadroom, Cassidy ran over to them.

"You two might wanna steer clear of Cragen," he told them, folding his arms. "He's in a mood."

Olivia smirked. "I'll bet," she said with a single nod, and she toyed with a button on her watch for a moment. Satisfied that the device was recording, she picked up the phone that was perched between her desk and Elliot's, dialed a number, and spat into it as soon as someone answered. "Yeah, it's me. Oh, I don't? Because I'm not! Get your ass down here, now, before I…" she paused to laugh. "Oh, I'm sure you do. We'll see. Now, Langan!" She slammed the receiver back on the cradle and crossed her arms. "Had the balls to tell me I didn't sound happy."

Cassidy eyed her for a minute. "Uh, why do you…"

"Hey," Elliot interrupted, pulling him to the side of the room. "I ran into your pal, Brody."

"Brody?" Cassidy frowned and shook his head.

"Brody Nelson, the hacker?" Elliot blinked. "You hired him to…"

"Shhh!" Cassidy flailed and flapped his hands. "Does she know about that?"

Elliot grinned and slapped Cassidy on the shoulder. "Sorry man," he said with a sarcastically sympathetic click of his tongue. "But listen, you gotta stop digging. You know Liv, and you know me, and you know the thought of us being some kind of secret agents…"

"Yeah, man, I know," Cassidy moaned, running a hand down his face. "Cragen threatened to bench me if I didn't…"

"Stop," Elliot interrupted, his eyes narrow and voice cold. "Hear me?"

Cassidy nodded, feeling like the threat was valid, and more like a promise. He swallowed hard and bobbed his head again, and then he asked, "Why are you bringing Langan back here?"

"Caught him trading information," Olivia said, proving she was listening to them, and she turned to look at Cragen, who had been standing behind her. "Found the mole." She gave him a self-satisfied smirk, knowing she had the upper hand.

Cragen squinted and folded his arms. "Langan? How the hell could he…"

"Alex," Olivia interrupted. "Apparently she learned a lot from the perps we bust in this unit." She moved fast, reaching the back table and grabbing a foam cup and the coffee pot instantaneously. She poured a cup and drank it fast, then poured a second one. She turned sharply and leaned against the cart, sipped her coffee, and glared at Cragen. "She had a lot to say to him."

"Between romps," Elliot added, shrugging and taking Olivia's coffee. He took a sip and winked at her.

Cragen eyed them for a moment, nodded once, and said, "We can't charge him with…"

"Tampering with evidence and sexual misconduct," Elliot rattled off, "Unless he cooperates." He took another sip of Olivia's coffee and handed it back to her, checked his watch, and tilted his head. "Really?" He looked at her inquisitively.

She gave an innocent shrug. "Around you? Always." She downed the rest of her coffee and jutted her chin toward the door. "He's here."

Elliot smoothed out his tie and followed as Olivia walked toward and then passed Langan, who paled as he followed them into the interrogation room. Once they were in the box, Olivia watched Langan sit, and then settled in directly across from him. She said nothing, her eyes simply narrowed, a wordless threat.

After a hard swallow, Langan let out a nervous laugh. "Benson, your games don't work with…"

"Not a game," she affirmed with a small shrug. "I heard it all from Alex, but the...proof...is on a hard drive up in the tech lab." She tilted her head. "You really threw your clients under the bus, jeopardized my career, Elliot's, not mention, of course, yours and Cabot's." She licked her lips and reached out fast, grabbing his wrist. She chuckled, then, and shook her head. "Pulse is racing, you're scared. You know we got you."

Langan took another shaky breath. "Look, I want to make this clear, I didn't do anything at all that would…"

"You broke every rule in the lawyer handbook!" Olivia yelled, her fingers still firm on Langan's pulse. "You could be disbarred! How many of your clients would sue? File appeals? Have their sentences reduced or overturned? You screwed up! But I'll be damned if you're dragging us, and the rest of this unit, down with you!"

Langan flinched when Olivia threw his wrist onto the table, and he very carefully leaned forward. He opened one eye, grimaced, and asked, "What do you want?"

Some smirked. "Me? Nothing. There are a few...agents...that might need a thing or two from you. Like the real reasons behind your betrayal and bad judgment."

"Real…" Langan fumbled for words, his mouth opened and closed, and he turned to look at Elliot, almost asking for help. "The reasons are pretty obvious, here, Stabler! Tell her to back off!"

Elliot crossed his arms and shrugged, a satisfied smile on his face. "Man, sex can be pretty incredible, but, uh, I seriously doubt it's worth throwing your entire career and life away. Especially sex with Cabot." He shuddered a bit and shook the offensive image out of his head.

"Please," Langan rolled his eyes. "Sex with her was a bonus, I did it for the money." He noticed both detectives raised their eyebrows at him, and he grew curious. "You...you said you had proof. If you know what I did, if you have everything from my computer…" he cleared his throat. "I want a deal!"

"Fuck no," Elliot hissed. "We got you, dead to rights, and your little panic attack tells me that there's a financial trail tucked away in those files. We'll find out what we…"

He was cut off by the sound of Olivia's phone ringing. The room went quiet as she answered it, and the two man watched with baited breath as she had a terse conversation with someone, her face reddening and her eyes closing in what could be construed as pain, anger, or discomfort.

When she hung up, she rubbed her forehead. "Someone from CCA is coming to pick you up, Langan. There might be...a way out of this for you."

Langan let out an audible sigh of relief. "Thank God," he wheezed. "Why? How? You just said…"

"I know what I said," she interrupted. And then her grin turned almost evil. "But you won't remember any of this tomorrow. Your computer just led us to the man who paid you for your...services."

Elliot narrowed his eyes and moved closer to her. "Who is…"

She answered him before he finished asking. "Cragen."

 **A/N: ohhh you knew it was him didn't you? But WHY!? Find out, next!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Why is Cragen fishing? And what else does the CCA do? Hmm...**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. And also, the show would need to be on HBO after 11PM…**

Olivia checked her watch, and out of habit she tapped the numbers of his birthday. She stared down for a moment, smirking at the blinking icon that told her Elliot was very aroused, but then again that was his constant state, it seemed. With a light clear of her throat, she looked up and their current situation smacked her in the face. Her eyes scanned the room, the Rotary club plaques on the walls, the framed photos of officers who had lost their lives in the line of duty. She bit her lip when she came to one photo that struck her, briefly closing her eyes, and she exhaled away the painful memory as she moved. "You getting anywhere?" she asked him, eager to get out of the station.

Elliot let out a half-scoff, glancing at her quickly, and then turned back to the thick glass window. "She's printing us a copy," he told her. "Can't fucking believe this is all coming down to Cragen."

"Makes perfect sense," she leaned back against the white stucco, her fingers drumming on the arm of her gun. Her teeth scraped over her lip again and she shook her head. "He's the, uh, captain of the ship, ya know? He's pissed that there's someone a bit more powerful than him in his own unit."

"A bit?" Elliot asked with a crooked brow and sly smile, then he turned and grinned more warmly at the older woman walking toward the partition. He took the folded papers she'd slid under the glass and said, "Thank you, Doloris." He waved at the pleasant woman and turned back to Olivia. "He's smoking us out over a power-trip? Fucking unbelievable."

"We got him on shit he's already done, we just need to figure out his next move," she said, moving with him as he walked toward the back of the lobby, leading her out the side exit. They each held up their badge and nodded at the security guard, and she said, "You saw his face, you heard what he said when Langan left. He has no idea you got pulled into the CCA, but I think he knows about…"

"You," he whipped his head toward her, stopping dead in his tracks.

Olivia felt the pulsing of her watch quicken, grow more intense, signaling his panic. She shook her head and instantly shot out a hand to grab his arm. "Relax," she said softly. "I'm not in any danger, here, you know that. I'm good."

He took a breath and nodded. "Just...the thought of anyone hurting you…" he grimaced as he started moving again, taking her through the heavy metal door, "Especially him. God, he...we trusted him."

"You trusted him," she corrected. "But only because you didn't know you couldn't." She tapped an icon on her watch and slid her hand up and down Elliot's arm. "Car's coming."

"Course it is," he jabbed, and then he surprised her by slapping his hand over hers, grabbing her fingers, and pulling her closer to him. He chuckled almost evilly as he kissed her, his other hand moving low to cup her ass. He squeezed and moaned against her lips, mumbling something into their kiss.

She nodded, raising her other hand to clutch the back of his neck, and she laughed when she heard his response. "Classy," she chuckled.

"Oh, ya know, I'm a classy guy," he teased, and he rubbed his hands over the curves of her ass again. "You'd never sick those amnesia guys on me, would you?"

She shook her head as she grazed her lips against his. "Never, I promise."

"Fucking scary shit," he said, pulling back from her and licking his lips. "I mean, knowing we have a whole team of people who can just...erase your memory."

"Alter," she corrected, pointing at him. "They alter memories. It's all completely safe and only done when it's absolutely necessary."

He hummed, briefly thinking about Kathy. "So he won't remember…"

"Anything about the agency or his hand in Cragen's scheme," she nodded. "He'll remember Alex, and their, uh, relationship, but he's gonna fight fair from now on." She squinted at him. "What did Cragen say, by the way? When you told him we had to go?"

"Told us to hurry the fuck up," he answered flatly. "Then said he expects us to have our 'Fives done and on his desk by nine."

"Oh, they will be," she spoke, knowing that she simply had to make a phone call. She kissed him again, sliding one hand between his legs. She cupped him and rubbed him hard as she said, "You drive me crazy," she moaned when he pulled her tighter and kissed her again, and all thoughts of the squad car Cragen had ordered to tail and hit them, his bribery and betrayal, were lost on the wings of their favorite escape.

An annoyed honk broke them apart and Elliot turned, confused. "Did...did the car just get pissy?"

"She doesn't like to be kept waiting," Olivia said with a smile, opening the door. "Neither do I."

He rolled his tongue around in his mouth, sliding into the backseat, and he waited just until she had gotten in and closed the door to growl and yank her on top of him.

She laughed, a full and loud laugh, as she played with his tie. "You starting something, Stabler?"

"After we read this," he pulled the folded pages the receptionist had given him out of his jacket pocket. He settled her on his lap and exhaled sharply as he shook the pages open. "Son of a bitch," he griped, reading the evidence access log. "You were right. The money he paid Langan came from the locker. Dug into the logs for the Backman raid and that prostitution ring from last month. He went into those boxes, and you and I both know there was a lot of fucking money bagged and tagged in them."

Olivia tilted her head. "Well, he's a detective. He knows better than to use his own money or a traceable bank account." She scratched lightly at the back of his neck. "So it's a good thing you got yourself sucked into the only agency in the world that can trace the untraceable ones, isn't it?"

He licked his lips and then scraped his teeth over his bottom one, nodding slowly. "Got myself sucked by what now?" he quipped, seeing the look in her eyes and knowing what it meant. He groaned, feeling her hand finding his hardness again, toying with him through his expensive pants. "Don't fucking tease me, baby, either do it or let me calm the fuck…" the sound of his zipper sliding down stopped him. He raised one eyebrow as he watched her move. He dropped his head back and moaned when he felt her mouth slip over him, and one hand played with her hair while the other balled the evidence log in his fist, losing himself in the moment, and in her.

Twenty minutes later, the car pulled up in the driveway of Elliot's house, and he got out of the black vehicle with a sly, smug grin on his face. He turned and helped Olivia out of the car, and held her hand the whole way up the steps. "These watches are fucking incredible," he said while unlocking the front door. "I meant to tell you earlier, I just…" he pushed the door open and stood aside to let her in first. "When we were in the, uh…"

"The interrogation room," she said, nodding. Her smile grew. She knew what he was talking about. "I had mine set, too. Trippy, isn't it?"

He shut the door and stepped over to her as he pulled off his jacket and tie. "I could feel your heart race, and when you came...it stopped for a second and then was stronger and faster and…" he shook his head. "It was incredible. Being able to feel everything that you're feeling like that, is fucking incredible." He kissed her and smoothed her hair back, but a noise from upstairs snapped his attention away from her. He moved fast, hand on his gun, toward the steps.

She was right behind him, her gun already held in both hands ready to aim and shoot. "Kids?" she whispered.

He shook his head. "No, we got here before their bus," he whispered back, his eyes trained on the landing. He was surprised t how quiet his steps were, and he smirked when he realized it was the agency-issue shoes, designed for exactly this type of thing. He stepped around the banister, raising his gun.

"Dickie's room," she whispered, hearing another noise. It sounded like opening and closing drawers. In step with him, she raised her own weapon and slowly crept toward the boy's door.

Elliot moved first and fast, kicking the door open and firmly aiming his gun. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked, but when he saw who was standing in the middle of the bedroom, he cocked the trigger. "Explain. Now."

Brody Nelson ignored the aimed gun, shook his head, and continued to do what he was doing. "Call him off, would ya?" he directed the question toward Olivia.

"Not until you tell us what you're doing," Olivia returned. Her own gun was poised, she had a perfectly clear shot of his head, all she needed was a reason.

"Surveillance," Nelson said, rearranging the stuffed animals and T-ball trophies on Dickie's dresser. "He's an agent, therefore the children fall under our protection, and you live here, now, right?" He turned and smirked at her. "My job is to make sure every room in your house is wired directly to HQ, and since this is now your house, I am rewiring every room."

Olivia lowered her gun and nodded at Elliot, telling him to do the same, "Right, sorry, I just...you were supposed to call me when you…"

"I wanted to surprise you," Nelson said snidely. He turned and slapped a small remote into Elliot's hand, and he grunted once. "Aim this at any TV in the house, hit the red button, then the blue one, and you'll see everything. Every camera, every angle. There's also an app, downloaded to both of your phones, for when you're not home." He looked over at Olivia and folded his arms. "You're welcome."

"How did you get…" she stopped herself, knowing exactly how he got into the house. "Nevermind. Thanks for this." She tried to smile at him. "I didn't think you'd get this done so quickly."

"Mundo threatened to cut my balls off if I didn't do it today," Nelson said without the slightest bit of hesitation. "Seems Stabler, here, isn't the only CCA op with a desperate need to protect your ass." He chuckled and pointed through the door, into the hallway. "I installed ComLink, one speaker in each hallway, and I was told to have an IAN delivered. He'll be here tomorrow morning."

"We're actually getting one?" Elliot asked, his voice like an excited child's. He saw Olivia nod at him and he did a little happy dance, imagining his kids playing with the bot. He sobered, then, and gave Nelson a curiously threatening glare. "Cameras...in every room?"

Brody rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake, please read your damn manual," he spat. "Yes. Every room and every hallway, the front door and back door, the garage, and two on the street lamps outside." He raised a hand. "Trust me. No one at HQ wants to watch you two fuck like goddamn rabbits, but as you're well aware, it happens." He glared at Elliot, reminding him that he already had plenty of footage of their romps.

Olivia spoke up, hoping to calm Elliot down before he killed Brody. "Relax, no one is actually gonna be watching us twenty-four-seven." She crossed her arms. "We'll have our privacy."

"She's right," Nelson assured. "The only reason someone at HQ will hone in on your feed is if Benson requests it, or if the cameras pick up a face it doesn't recognize. Yours have already been programmed, as have the kids and your immediate family." He crooked a finger and had them follow him down the stairs, across the living room floor, and he pointed to a small, silver box next to the television. "Your voices have all been uploaded into your ComLink. You need to come up with a Code Red, a word that will trigger the alarm and emergency response. It'll also do that if the system senses you're in trouble." He looked at Elliot. "Before you ask, yes. The system will be able to tell the difference between you two fucking and someone being attacked. It senses emotion."

Elliot narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. "Thanks for clarifying," he spat. He put one hand on his hip and the other raked through his hair. "What about…"

"I've got Mundo coming by tomorrow," Nelson said, ignoring Elliot and heading for the front door. "He's gonna install some new panels, they'll blend right into the painted wood of the door." He looked at Olivia. "Even if someone has a key, they can't get in without palming the panel, too." He shrugged. "Congratulations, you live in Fort Knox."

Olivia chuckled and walked him out, seeing the yellow school bus pulling up to the curb at the same time. She felt Elliot move and slip his arms around her, and he smiled as his kids got off of the bus and ran up the driveway and up the steps.

"Daddy!" Maureen shouted happily, throwing her body into him. "What are you doing home?"

Kathleen had hugged Olivia tightly. "Yeah! What's the matter?"

"Nothing guys," Elliot said, kissing his oldest daughters. He turned with a laugh and caught Lizzie and Dickie as they ran and jumped into his arms. He squeezed them with a soft grunt and stood up. "We just told our boss that, until we figure out other arrangements, we need to be home to meet you after school, and, uh, we have take you back to work with us." He carried his twins into the house, smiling when he saw Olivia keeping Kathleen and Maureen in the doorway.

He grabbed his jacket and tie, and then looked down at his kids. "You guys wanna take a ride in a really cool car?" he asked, scruffing his son's hair.

"Uh, duh," Dickie replied, rolling his eyes dramatically.

"Come on," Olivia waved all the kids out the door again, and started to get them settled, eager to see their faces light up when the car moved without a driver.

Elliot laughed as he locked the door, loving the way she cared for his heads and feeling more love for her than he thought possible. But, as he headed down the steps to meet his family by the car, he couldn't help feeling like the life he had just been given was about to be ripped away from him.

 **A/N: A confrontation with Cragen, and a new gadget with a new assignment! Next?**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Always more questions than answers.**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. And also, the show would need to be on HBO after 11PM…**

"They can't be here," Cragen pointed at the four tiny humans before they even stepped into the squadroom. "They need to be…"

Elliot stepped up to the man, balling his fists, resisting the urge to throw a punch. "Their mother took off like a bat out of hell. I told you, I would need to…"

"You said you needed to bring them back here," Cragen nodded once, "I thought you meant downstairs in the daycare…"

"No," Elliot interrupted. "I meant here, upstairs in the lounge, they're gonna do their homework, have a snack, take a nap, you won't even know they're here." He turned and smiled at his kids before waving them in the direction of the side staircase. "If you really have a problem with it…" he stepped forward and looked right into Cragen's eyes, almost threatening him. "Do something about it." He narrowed his eyes, slightly and quickly, and then lowered his voice before saying, "You got yourself into a fuck ton of trouble, huh? I'd watch what kind of orders you give and who you give them to, or you'll have a whole new problem."

Cragen balked but couldn't hide the genuine fear in his eyes. "Are you threatening me?"

Elliot chuckled and shook his head. "Come on, Cap, you know I don't make threats." He quirked an eyebrow as he pulled on his silk tie, as if indicating to the man before him that a lot had changed. From the office, the phone rang, and Elliot's smirk grew wider. "You should get that."

Cragen shot his gaze over toward Olivia, and his stomach flipped as he realized his worst fears had become reality, that she had not only figured out he was the one hunting her down but she'd pulled Elliot into the tangled web with her. He gulped, backed away slowly, and headed into his office, slamming the door behind him.

"That was stupid," she said to him without looking at him, her focus on the envelopes she was ripping open. "He's not gonna play nice now."

"Please, like he was going to, anyway," he retorted, stepping up behind her. He looped an arm around her shoulders and lean into her a bit too closely. His newfound place in the government food chain was going to his head, he knew it, and he was taking full advantage of the fact that he was above the law. "What's that?"

"More files our guys pulled off Cragen's computer while we were out. They couldn't fax it, so they got it all into our mailroom," she said and she jerked her left arm, shirking away his hand. "This is still your job, you still have to…" she felt his hot breath on her neck, the goosebumps rose fast. "Fuck it," she said, and she turned around to look at him, trying not to kiss him. "Take it down a notch, we still have to keep a couple of secrets from the rest of the guys around here."

He licked his lips and nodded, and then, as he tugged the cuffs of his expensive suit down lower on his wrists, he said, "You're the only one I take orders from," and then he grinned smugly. "Anywhere, anytime." He tilted his head and added, "But, uh, reciprocity is a bitch, so be prepared for it." He saw her eyes go smoky and he chuckled proudly. "What files, now?"

"Jerk," she cracked, shifting her weight, her arousal obviously making her uncomfortable. She looked down at the documents she held in her hands and said, "He has dirt on everyone in the entire NYPD. Half of its bullshit, but it's believable bullshit."

"In case he needed to blackmail anyone," he surmised, pulling a few pages out of her hands. He scoffed and his nostrils flared again. "Including us." He shook his head as he read the words on the page, dates of incidents where they'd used excessive force but didn't report it, where they got a confession a bit unethically, moral indecency in the station house, among other completely fabricated but plausible indiscretions. "Ya know, if he even tried to…"

"I know," she said, nodding, and when she checked her watch, she smirked. "Really?"

"Always," he said with a wink, he crossed his arms and tossed his head back. He dropped his eyes and gave her a look like a confused Doberman. "What the hell are those things?"

She pulled a plastic tab off of one of the long, thin objects in her hand. Smiling, she handed it to him. "In its most basic terms, it's a pen. That's also a lie detector."

"And in the less basic terms?" He crooked an eyebrow at her.

Chuckling at his eagerness, she said, "It's a voxual anatomizor. It not only records conversations, but picks up on slight nuances in the tone, texture, pitch, and stability of a person's voice."

"It can tell when they're lying," he understood, and he flips the pen around in his hand. "Does it beep? Say something? I mean how am I supposed to…"

"It's paired to your watch," she interrupted, "Your watch will not only beep, but you'll get a message telling you exactly what the lie was." She clicked the button on her own pen, and she wagged her eyebrows. "It's also, wait for it…" she scrawled something down on the paper he had dropped onto his desk. She gave an exaggerated gasp as she said, "A pen."

His smile reached his eyes as he laughed, and he slipped the pen into his breast pocket. "I love this fucking job." He moved closer. "I love you." He winked and watched her blush. He heard her clear her throat and then turned his head toward Cragen's door again. "Think he's off the phone? I'd hate like hell to have to do what we gotta do while he's talking to the mayor or something."

"Doesn't matter," she said taking off her blazer. "We aren't the ones going in there to tear him down. No one around here is supposed to see us put on the SuperAgent capes, remember?"

"Right, right," he nodded, "So then who is.."

Before he finished the question, Nelson and an agent he'd never met before walked in with badges in the air. "FBI," Nelson declared eyeing the people in the room. "Everyone stay where you are." He shot Olivia a look and cleared his throat. "Looking for Captain Cragen."

Olivia pointed at the office door, a look of feigned shock and concern on her face.

The entire squadroom stared, stunned, watching the two men in black suits walk into Cragen's office without knocking. There was not a peep to be heard from anyone as they strained to hear what was going on behind the closed oak door.

Olivia and Elliot didn't have to guess; they knew. But they still pretended to be just as curiously petrified as everyone around them.

Cassidy stepped up to them with crossed arms and in an incredibly soft whisper, he asked, "Yo, weren't you guys saying someone was kicking things up to the feds?"

"Uh, yeah," she huffed, remembering that they had to tell a little white lie to explain why certain cases closed too quickly and why certain people were never seen again. "Cragen said he didn't know who it was."

"Obviously, he didn't," Cassidy said, "Whoever it is pulled the rug out from under him." He licked his lips and leaned against the side of Olivia's desk. "But what could he have done that merits a federal ass kicking?"

Elliot chuckled, knowing that was the farthest thing from the truth. "You know what that's about," he said to Cassidy. "You're lucky they're not coming after you."

"What?" Cassidy hissed, his face screwed up in surprise and fear. He leaned closer to Elliot and said, "What the hell are you…"

"Detective Benson?" Agent Nelson called, his head peeking out from Cragen's door. "A moment?" He paused. "You too, Detective Stabler." He waited and rolled his eyes as the two of them looked around as if they were in some kind of trouble and then he moved out of the way to let them into the office. He closed the door, leaned against it, and said, "Let him have it."

"I assume, since we were called in here, that they told you," Olivia put her hands in her pockets and gave Cragen a harsh glare, "About me." She grinned. "And Elliot."

Cragen couldn't look her in the eyes. Instead, he simply nodded fast looking at an old photo on his desk. Him, younger, and a beautiful woman who looked something like Olivia only with much lighter hair and softer more delicate features. He chewed on his bottom lip and asked, "They told me. But why didn't you?"

"Right," she scoffed. "Give you the information you needed to sell us to the highest bidder? Make us a target for whoever the hell you're working for?" She tilted her head and gave him another sly grin. "Give you something else to blackmail us with?" She didn't show any emotion when Cragen's head whipped towards her. "Yeah, we know all about that."

"Call off your dogs," Cragen pleaded, his eyes closed in something close to defeat. "We can handle this, the three of us. You let me in your little club, I look the other way when you two fuck up…"

The almost manic laugh that erupted from Olivia finally proved that she was aware of how much power she really had. "You...you don't get it?" She leaned over and placed both of her palms flat on Cragen's desk. "You never had to look the other way because we never answered to you."

Cragen gave her a disbelieving look. "Maybe you never did, but he…"

"As for you joining...you called it a club?" She scoffed. "Our agents are vetted, for years, before an offer is made. Extensive background checks, surveillance, personal interaction and character study...you were never seen as a potential agent." She licked her lips. "Elliot has been on our radar since you hired him."

Cragen's eyes widened but they weren't the only ones.

Elliot gasped as he stared at her and he turned his attention more fully toward her.

Cragen didn't notice; he was too busy holding his breath. "Since…" he blinked. "What?"

Olivia laughed again, softer but with the same amount of arrogant authority. "Why the hell do you think...someone in my position...landed here, in this particular unit?" She held up one hand and gave a tilt of her head. "Sure, this was my choice of gig from the get go, but there are four other precincts in the state I could have walked into, yet…" she shrugged, "Here I am. From the day I came in for that first interview, I had my sights set on Stabler." She cleared her throat and looked over her shoulder at Elliot. "For a lot of reasons." She turned back to Cragen.

"Wait," Cragen closed his eyes and shook his head. "You only chose this unit…"

"Because Elliot Stabler passed the first three evaluations," she said, straightening up, "and the last thing I needed was…"

"Personal interaction," Elliot whispered, an unreadable expression on his face.

She continued. "Nothing about my relationship with him

was faked or forced," she said to Cragen, "So don't look at me like that. I never lied to him. In fact, he, uh, he found out about all this…" she waved a hand around to include the other two agents and herself, "What, like…a week after we met?"

"Five days," Elliot corrected, "But you left out the part where I was being vetted for this for...how long?"

She shoved her hands back in her pockets. "I didn't want to scare the shit out of you, and I needed it to be your choice. It was my call to wait, when I realized…"

"Yeah, this part…" he grinned and took two steps in her direction, "I know all about." He lifted a hand and grazed a knuckle across her right cheek. "Finish, uh…" he pointed at Cragen.

She smirked and turned again, and she sighed loudly. "For so long I thought of you as a father." She noticed his face lose color at the word. "I mean, we both know you're not...you're not my father, but there was a time when you wanted to be, wasn't there?"

"You…" Cragen swallowed hard again and shifted in his seat. "You know about that?"

"When are you going to understand," she angled her head in such a way that the light in the room made her eyes look like black diamonds. "I know everything. Which is why…" she moved closer, "I'm not doing things the traditional way with you. No fucking around with your memory, no wiping you off the face of the planet. No. You…" she stood up straight again and tugged roughly on the hem of her shirt. "You are going to go with these quite persuasive gentlemen, and you are going to answer every question they ask." She slipped her new pen out of her pocket and into Nelson's. "I will know, immediately, if you're lying, and I won't be this easy to deal with, so I strongly suggest that you tell the damn truth."

Cragen huffed, offended, and said, "I have never lied to you!"

Her watch and Elliot's have simultaneous twin beeps and they both sneered at him. "I told you," Olivia said, "I would know if you lied. I wasn't kidding." She turned to Nelson. "I want you to dig as deep as you possibly can, I want the entire inquisition taped, video and audio, and a live feed linked to my laptop and my watch, I want…"

"I know what you want," Nelson snapped, shutting her up. "If it's in there, you'll get it, I promise."

Cragen rose to his feet when the unknown agent moved to lift him out of his chair. "Okay, okay," he rushed, and he looked at Olivia once before letting himself be taken into the custody of the CCA. "Who's gonna run the unit while I'm gone."

"The same person who's been running it for the last three years," she answered. She turned away from Cragen moved closer to Elliot. She slipped her fingers under the collar of his shirt, popped and smoothed it, and smiled at him.

"Elliot?" Cragen scoffed, confused.

Olivia looked at him with a fire in her eyes that had never been there before, not this fierce, and she shook her head slowly. "Me."

 **A/N: So she was calling the shots? And right under his nose? That's our girl.**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Why is Cragen really fishing? And what is life at home like for Elliot now?**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. And also, the show would need to be on HBO after 11PM…**

It was after midnight when Elliot opened the door to his house, trudging in with a daughter slung over each shoulder. Dickie wobbled in groggily behind him, followed by Olivia, who was carrying a sleeping Lizzie. She kicked the door closed, smirking when she heard it lock on its own, and immediately headed for the stairs, staying almost silent as she carried the girl up to her bedroom.

Elliot was close behind, and together they tucked in the three girls and got Dickie settled in his bed. They looked at each other, let out a simultaneous breath, and fell together, wrapping each other up. "What a night," he whispered into the bend of her neck.

She hummed in response, trying to let go of the hectic night she'd had. Barking orders at her confused colleagues, avoiding questions and concerns about Cragen, and the brutal case that took over their evening had taken a toll on her in every way possible. She nudged Elliot, trying to get him off of her so she could move, but he had other plans. "What are you…"

Elliot kissed her, silencing her question. His hands moved down her back until they cupped her ass. He moaned as he bucked his hips and tugged her body as he eased into the hallway. He arched backward, still kissing her, and used his hip to close his son's bedroom door.

They'd spun around, lost balance, and Elliot fell back into the wall, sparking the house's AI to ask, "Are you all right, Agent Stabler?"

Elliot chuckled. "Fucking perfect," he replied, and he moved Olivia toward the stairs. He started unbuttoning her shirt as they navigated the hall, staying close to the banister so he wouldn't trip and take her down with him. "So fucking beautiful," he growled, stopping on a stair. He blinked once, and then froze and fixed his gaze as he slid his hands across her toned stomach. He felt her muscles twitch under his touch and for a moment, he lost himself.

"El?" she prodded, cupping his face with her hands. She pulled up, forcing him to tear his eyes away from her body and look at her face. "Baby?"

He moved fast, scooping her up, and he carried her down the rest of the steps as he kissed her again. He held her in his arms as he walked through the living room, kicking off his shoes along the way. He brought her through the open bedroom door, and with a hearty grunt, he tossed her onto the bed. Narrowing his eyes, he smirked at her, keeping her stare as he slowly peeled away his suit. He felt a hard, fast pulse hitting his wrist and his grin grew darker. Feeling how he affected her made him harder, made him need her more.

She watched as the jacket fell to the floor, followed by his shirt, and she held her breath as his fingers tugged his pants over his hips.

"Breathe," he told her, knowing she wasn't, and he let his pants drop and leaped onto her, sliding her own fitted suit off of her body. He kissed every bit of exposed skin as it was revealed to him, his fingertips grazed whatever parts of her he could reach, and he whispered words against her skin that she still wasn't used to hearing.

Her head dropped back against the pillow as her eyes shut tightly. She dragged her hands through his short hair, and when she heard him growl again, she dug her nails into his scalp and scratched her way back up, grinning. "I love you," she whispered.

He kissed her stomach as he made his way up her body and he hovered over her, the tip of his dick nudging at her entrance, and he peered down at her. He nuzzled her, his nose brushed against hers, his lips ran lightly over her mouth. "Baby," he said softly, "Love ain't the right fucking word." He kissed her and thrust his hips, sheathing himself deeply inside of her. He swallowed her scream, caught her legs as she hiked them around his back, and started to pull back. He started a slow but powerful rhythm and as his body worked into hers, his kiss remained constant.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the fact that any number of government agents could be watching them sparked to life, but he chuckled and moved harder, deeper, faster. "Fuck," he hissed, pulling the bit of her hair that had wound around his hand. "So fucking good," he spoke through tightly clenched teeth. "Fuck, I need you."

She held back a scream as she kissed him, rolling her body upward, meeting his eager and powerful thrusts. She hoped he knew how much she needed him, too.

They were so lost, so consumed, focusing only on each other and what they were feeling, that the frantic unrelatedly important beeping of their watches went ignored.

Across town, in a sterile, clinical interrogation room nestled inside an incredibly high-tech building, Captain Don Cragen was being questioned by people who knew exactly what to ask to get under his skin.

"I can't…" Cragen nearly whimpered, shaking his head. "I swear, I had no intention of hurting either of them...there were things...things I needed to know. Please, don't ask me...I can't tell her. If I lie, she will know...if I tell the truth, she'll know, and that's worse! Just don't ask me if…"

"Have you ever," Brody Nelson began, cutting into Cragen's words, "Contacted her father?"

Cragen exhaled and licked his drying, cracking lips. "Not directly, no." He looked up and prayed they'd be satisfied.

Nelson continued. "Have you ever used the kinship analysis program to find potential relatives for yourself or anyone in your unit?"

"Yes," Cragen said through gritted teeth. He knew that lying would be the death of his relationship with Olivia as it was, but he prayed simple truths would be enough. He stared at Nelson, scraped his teeth along his bottom lip, and in the silence, he took a breath.

Nelson saw the slight relaxation and smirked. "Whose?" He leaned over and shook his head. "Don't even try to be vague."

"Olivia's," Cragen whispered, defeated. "Elliot's. Mine." He dragged a hand down his face and leaned back. "I needed to see if she had family out there somewhere, and I had to be sure that those four kids Elliot has been raising are really his, or if he had more somewhere he didn't know about! Shit, I did everything because I was trying to protect her. I swear, I would never…"

"We know," Nelson spat, and he reached behind him to grab a thick folder. He tossed it onto the table in front of Cragen. "See, everything you just told us...we already knew." He rocked on his heels. "She knew. She just needed you to prove that you'd be…"

"Honest," Cragen finished, dragging a finger down the spine of the bound file. "She already knows?" He felt the tears building in his eyes. "And that means...Elliot knows. Shit. Has she contacted her brother? Does Elliot know his father has two other kids running around? Did he tell his mother?"

"Who's doing the questioning here?" Nelson cracked. He ran a hand down his face. "She's spoken to Simon, yes. Elliot didn't tell Bernie anything. Even if he had mentioned it, she probably can't even remember now."

"Can't remember?" Cragen questioned, and then something occurred to him. "Or did you make her forget?" He bit his lip and dropped his eyes, staring at his hands as he picked at his cuticles with his nails. "You do that, don't you? Olivia said something about…"

"No," Nelson interjected. "We don't just modify the memories of innocent people for the hell of it. Not unless we absolutely have to. Bernadette Stabler is not high on our list of potential threats." He cleared his throat. "You are. And we needed to see…""

"How big of one I am?" Cragen rubbed his forehead. "I love her. Both of them, I was honestly trying to protect them from…"

Nelson stopped him. "They don't need protection," he said. "Anyone who even thinks about hurting them would be...taken care of...before you even knew they were threatened. And anyone that would take any kind of disciplinary action against them already knows they're untouchable. Sergeant Tucker is on the…"

"I know that, now," Cragen yelled. "But I didn't then! I knew...someone was, and I thought whoever it was...was trying to get to Olivia! I needed to know! And please, I wasn't trying to blackmail them! I was trying to figure out if and how anyone else could!" He threw a hand up in the air. "And I made sure I had dirt on anyone who'd try, because...if I hit back with something just as threatening, I could keep them out of it!"

Nelson nodded once. "Okay," he tapped the folder. "Now, the real issue here." He leaned forward. "Tell me, why didn't you take Serena Benson's second claim seriously? She came to you, begging for help. She told you she thought someone was after her, and you ignored her."

"I already told you," Cragen blinked once. "I wasn't even...I was working a beat with Homicide out of the Two-Seven, and Serena Benson...it's called Alcoholics Anonymous, not Alcoholics Bosom Buddies!" He bit his lip and pushed the file away with a grunt. "I thought she was drunk, paranoia is a side effect of…" he waved it off and then exhaled. "I just...didn't have a reason to believe her."

Nelson pulled out the white metal chair and sat with a plop. "And when did you realize she really needed help?"

Cragen smiled, remembering. "She started bringing Olivia to meetings with her. Said she couldn't leave her home alone. I knew...she must've been really terrified if she'd bring her four-year-old kid to AA." He inhaled sharply and said, "I went against every rule in the book, I got personal. I tried so hard to protect them. Protect her. And when...when she broke up with me, I had a friend watch her. Drive the patrol car down the block a few times a night, and…" he shrugged. "Nothing ever happened. No one went after them, no one…" he blinked away the tears as he remembered. "I let her go and I stopped watching her, and things turned to shit. It's my fault! Everything that happened to her after I left them...I should have been there. She went through hell...because of me."

Nelson eyed him carefully and sighed. "No, you...you didn't think…" he breathed. "Joe Hollister was watching them, and you...so when you and Serena ended things, he waited until you called off your detail and started all over again. Following them but never saying anything, making Serena feel like she was seeing things, and that's what drove her back to the bottle. That's what made her...do what she did to Benson."

A tear rolled down Cragen's cheek. "I should've been there." He looked at Nelson and said, "What kind of trouble am I in here?"

Nelson shook his head. "If all of this checks out, if you honestly weren't trying to hand over Benson and Stabler to opposing forces, then...you're not in any trouble. Not with us." He bit his lip and pulled the pen Olivia had given him out of his pocket. "You'd still have to answer to Benson."

Cragen eyed the pen in Nelson's hand. "Can you, uh, turn that off?"

"Of course not," Nelson spat. "Even if I could, I wouldn't. Why?"

Cragen closed his eyes. "I need to say something...and I need you...I need someone to promise…" he opened his eyes. They were red, filling with tears. "Don't tell Olivia. Not until...I tell her face to face."

 **A/N: Cragen and Serena were a couple? Elliot has half-siblings? And what's the secret?**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: What does Cragen have to say to Olivia? And Olivia has a surprise for Elliot. A good one?**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. And also, the show would need to be on HBO after 11PM…**

The morning had been nteresting to say the least. The house's AI system had played a gently-awakening alarm in every room, rousing each person easily and not startling them awake in fear and anger. The IAN had set a full breakfast on the table before anyone had even stepped foot in the kitchen.

The kids' school things had been organized and packed, set out on the coffee table in the living room, and the snazzy little droid had packed lunches for them.

Elliot was still thinking about his easy and admittedly awesome morning at work, but he noticed, as he looked across his desk at his partner, that she wasn't thinking about anything nearly as happy. "Hey," he spat to her, "What's with you?"

She tapped a few keys on her computer's keyboard and then shot him a look. When she heard the bleep signifying that his message screen popped up, she simply nodded at his computer and went back to her own work, a scowl on her face.

Confused and concerned, he looked down at his own monitor. "What the…" he mumbled. He moved the mouse, clicked the link she'd sent him, and his eyes went from bare slits to dinner plates. He watched, his heart shattering, as the transcript from the agency's full interview with Cragen scrolled across his screen. The answers he had given, the reasons behind them, and the one thing he'd asked not be divulged.

He looked over at her and not giving much of a shit, he got up and moved to her. "Listen to me," he said, and he knelt beside her. He put his hands on her knees, rubbing up her thighs, and he softened his gaze when she did as requested and turned to him. He smiled and said, "You heard him. He thought he was...protecting you." He squeezed, pressing his fingers into her skin. "Baby, he...he did exactly what...what I would've done. You know that."

She nodded as she ran a hand through her hair and blew out a hard breath. "Explains...explains why we never found him. As hard as we looked, no trace of him in the last twenty-six years, and now…" she closed her eyes and shook her head. "How am I supposed to punish him for this?"

"You're the boss," he reminded her. "You don't have to. He didn't run downstairs to Berkin in Homicide and confess, he told a couple of agents in a division of a fucking highly superior agency...that doesn't answer to anyone else, makes its own rules, and can ignore something like this if it wants to, right?"

She laughed softly, dropping her hands on top of his. "I wanted...so badly to hear him give me a name, an address...the chance to talk to the son of a bitch." She hooked her fingers through Elliot's and squeezed. "I have questions that...that I will never have the answers to, ever."

He grinned smugly at her and drew small circles in the sides of her hands with his thumbs. "You have a pretty intense hacker finding every bit of information about Joseph Hollister, shit he didn't even know about himself, so I don't think you need to worry about…"

"I want to know why," she interrupted. "Why her? Why me? I want to know his reasons, and why he didn't fucking do anything about it when he...when he found us." She blinked and seemed almost shocked by the two tears that began rolling down her cheeks. "I'll have his medical records, his family history. I'll have his employment and tax records. But I will never have his reasons." She looked up, then, and locked eyes with the brass knob on Cragen's office door. "He...he dated my mother. He was a part of my childhood that...that I don't remember, and he knew exactly who I was when I volunteered for this unit, it was probably why he…"

"So what if it was?" He interrupted her and worked his right hand free from hers, brushed the hair off of her face, and cupped the side of her chin and cheek. "You're still a fucking brilliant detective, doing what you were meant to do, and you being here...brought us together. I won't hate any reason for that." He leaned in and kissed her and then whispered, "You were gonna have yourself transferred into this unit whether Cragen liked it or not, which would've tipped him off to your special agent alter ego a lot sooner, so maybe a little nepotism worked in your favor."

She laughed again, louder and more genuine, and she nodded. "You always say the right fucking thing," she kissed his forehead, his lips, and then whispered, "I love you."

"I love you, too," he got to his feet, moved back over to his desk, and held a hand out to the monitor. "And this...this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't change who you are, what you've become. Doesn't change our life with the kids, doesn't change your sweet little government job," he chuckled and said, "All this did...is give you the closure you never would've had without it."

She watched him sit, noticed his fingers move as he closed the documents and the message box, and when he set himself to the task of pulling up the records for their current SVU case, she turned her attention back towards the captain's door. "Maybe…" She took a deep breath and rose out of her chair, shaking as she started walking. She didn't knock, she didn't need to now, and closed the door behind her before she sat down in front of him.

Cragen's tired eyes met hers. "Liv," he spoke, but then bitterness set in. "Or should I say Agent Benson?"

"Cut the shit," she bit, and she folded her hands in her lap. "Just...please...tell me," she stopped and she licked her lips once and started picking at her cuticles, her fingers clawing around. "Tell me…" she looked into Cragen's eyes, reached into her pocket, and clicked her pen. "How'd you kill him?"

Cragen winced, realizing that she knew the one thing he'd begged them not to tell her. "I didn't mean to," he sighed, and he shrugged. "Not...not at first. I went there…" he stiffened. "I was wearing a wire, I was only going to get him to admit what he'd done, while there was still time to do something about it."

"You...a wire, you have the whole thing on tape?" Her eyes bulged and she shook her head. "I need that…"

"I burned it, Benson! I knew having that kind of evidence...I would have spent the rest of my life in jail! For what? Taking out a piece of trash! A guy no one was going to kiss?" Cragen stopped shouting and looked down, but he held up both hands. "I have the whole damn thing memorized, trust me." He kneaded both hands into his face and then dragged them down. "He didn't give it up. Not until I told him I knew your mother. That I knew...I knew you."

"What did he say?" Her question was hanging between soft emotion and firm demand. "What did he tell you?"

Cragen took pause, seeing her vulnerability shine through in a way he hadn't for quite some time. "Well, um...his story was almost the same as Serena's. He admitted following her across campus, attacking her, but then he...he said it wasn't random. That he chose her, wanted her. He remembered her name and when...when the local LEOs put out a request for information about her rape...because she was pregnant…" he shook his head. "Point is, he knew about you, but he also knew Serena would turn him in, and he was afraid of getting caught. He followed you, which made your mother think she was seeing things, made her paranoid."

"Made her drink," she said softly, "And then? How did his confession lead to you killing him?" Her nostrils flared and she wasn't sure if it was because she was angry or trying not to cry. Or both. "You told my agents you wanted to tell me face to face, so do it! Tell me!"

Cragen stood up, then. He walked around his desk and leaned against it, crossed his arms, and said, "He started talking about how he watched, how he stood at your window or in your yard, watched her beat the shit out of you, and...he didn't stop it because he said that the anger in Serena's eyes and the way she fought...turned him on," his jaw clenched and his teeth clicked. "When he started talking about his plans to go back and relive...Liv, he was gonna attack your mother again, and then what would have happened to you? Huh? I tried to arrest him, he resisted, he pulled a knife on me so I shot the bastard." His mouth twitched and his pulse throbbed in his neck. "I looked him right in the eyes and pulled the trigger, and I watched him fall, I watched him struggle to breathe, I watched the deer fill his eyes the way he watched it in your mother's, and I watched him die." He took a slow breath and shook his head halfway. "I'm not sorry."

Olivia shot to her feet and stared back at him, still shaking, and she took one step closer to him. "You told my guys that you were trying to protect us, that you never would have had a hand in hurting us."

"And I'm assuming you know I wasn't lying," he said as he gazed back at her. "Or I would be in federal lock up, or dead." He shrugged. "Whatever you people do," he scoffed.

She rolled her eyes and poked the inside of her cheek with her tongue, and then she looked at him again. "You've been...protecting me for a long time." She lowered her voice. "You can stop now," she told him.

"Oh, sweetheart, never," he said, and the disdain in his voice and features melted into warm love. "Liv, I know you knew more than I told them, before I even got there. You know I was once in love with your mother, and I was...I am...so proud of you, and honored to be a part of your life. But no more secrets." He looked away from her. "From either of us, deal?" He eyed her carefully.

She pressed her lips together and nodded, and then she said, "Now that you know, uh, about me, Elliot, and the CCA, you know that we…"

"Outrank me," he finished for her. "Yeah." He held out his hand and said, "No one else I'd rather take a backseat to, kid."

She laughed lightly and shook his hand, then gasped as she was pulled into a hug. "Cap," she said softly, and she met him in the hold, one of her hands resting on his shoulder as her eyes closed. Inwardly, she battled every emotion coursing through her, pushing down the pain and anger and guilt and allowing the relief, love, and gratitude to win, just this once. She sniffled and tried to straighten up. "Captain, I have to…"

"I know," Cragen pushed away from her, nodding. "You have to arrest me, there's no statute of limitations on…"

"I have to call someone at HQ, have a few of my agents take a little visit to our lab," she told him. "You burned your recorder, and I'm...burning mine." She smiled at him and slowly turned, not feeling the least bit guilty for letting him get away with murder.

Elliot watched her come out of his office and he kept his eyes trained on her as she walked back to their desks. "Well, I didn't hear screaming, so…"

"I didn't kill him," she laughed. She sat in her chair and leaned back. "You were right, I got...I got the closure I needed. I feel...lighter. Knowing what I know now, it makes everything so much easier." She reached for her coffee and as she sipped it she said, "You should check your email." She dropped her cup and picked up her phone, eager to make the phone call that would make it as though Cragen's interview had never happened.

Elliot did as he was told, and when he found the message she'd meant for him to read, he let out a short gasp and a squeal. "Are you fucking serious?"

She nodded at him as she spoke to the anamnesis specialist. She said a quick thank you and hung up and then said, "It makes things easier for us, ya know, if we have to go anywhere. Or if we want to...take a vacation." She smirked and then added, "Like the one you keep hinting at but are too afraid to actually ask me about."

"When?" He looked at her with the eyes of an excited child. "Baby, when?"

"As you as you take those classes and get your license," she told him, "But, I mean, the plane will have the same technology as the car, so you don't really need to pilot the whole time."

Elliot shook his head in wonderment and reread the email giving him direct orders from Olivia to take flying lessons at HQ's airport. "I fucking love you," he said.

He was so excited that he'd missed the tail end of the message, something she was hoping would happen.

She wanted to wait for the right time to tell him that he wasn't just a new hire at the agency, but that he was now one of the only two people in the world that were entirely above the law.

He didn't know it, but he was now almost as powerful as Olivia was. Almost.

And when he finds out, the power will go right to his head.

 **A/N: Can Elliot handle everything that his new life is bringing along with it?**


End file.
